GENRE AND GENRE

    It's not unusual to hear the word "genre" tossed around by artistic types. I've heard it pronounced in several awkward ways. I prefer, as I was taught in college, to say it in the French manner. But what does it mean? I don't think most people know that there are two distinct meanings for this word.
    The common use for this word is when one is referring to a particular style or form of artistic endeavor. The second, less known meaning for genre is a painting style in which scenes from everyday life are depicted, usually in a realist style.

    Genre painting won my heart when I was an art student. So many art history classes were spent looking at portrait after portrait of religious figures, kings, generals, politicians, and their wives and mistresses. How refreshing it was to finally see images of everyday people. An early favorite as seen above, is Jean-Francois Millet's Woman Baking Bread, from 1854.

    As reluctant as I am about going on about French artists, the 19th century impressionists did advance this movement of genre painting. Above is Edouard Manet's Bar at the Folies Bergeres. I also admire the scenes of Edgar Degas' Portraits in an Office, and Auguste Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party.

    In 1885 Vincent Van Gogh did a stunningly raw portrait of very common folk in his The Potato Eaters.

    This genre painting influence can be seen in America with Winslow Homer, an example being his Gloucester Farm, from 1874. Painter Thomas Eakins was right alongside him with his Mending the Net, done in 1881.

    The 20th century standouts for me are Edward Hopper, as seen in his Automat, of 1927, and my all-time favorite influence, Robert Bechtle, as in Roses, painted in 1973.

    Two local proponents of genre painting and art are myself, as seen in the flagship painting at the top of this blog site, PDQ, and Sebastopol's Rik Olson, with his linocut depicting a grocery woman.

    An unforeseen twist is that the predominant instrument of genre art today is the smartphone! For better or worse, never before have the lives of common people been so visually documented and widely shared.

IN PROTEST

    I looked up "world revolutions" in Wikipedia and found a list that was overwhelming. There were hundreds of struggles that I had never even heard of. It seems that ever since humans figured out how to organize themselves, the fighting began. The passions and the figureheads that spearheaded these movements have always inspired works of art. Here are some of my favorites.
    I'm going to begin by looking back only 144 years ago when in 1869 a Massachusetts born Quaker woman, Susan B. Anthony, cofounded an organization devoted to gaining American women the right to vote. All American men had achieved this right in 1870, but it was not until fifty years later, and after Susan's death, that American women were granted this privilege. Of course there are plenty of portraits of her, but Arizona artist John Adams gives this portrayal of her a 21st century spin.

    Moving to the 1940s, India's Mahatma Gandhi led his country out from under the rule of Britain, and tried his utmost to make it a peaceful process. Today his courage is still spoken of with reverence. Canadian Jeff Clark in 2011 portrayed Gandhi in what he calls a word portrait.

    A turning point moment of the civil rights movement in America was when in 1955 a Montgomery, Alabama woman named Rosa Parks refused to move to the back seat of a bus and was arrested for it. In 2013 she was featured on a U.S. postage stamp, with a graceful portrait done by Atlanta's Thomas Blackshear II.

    In 1959 China confiscated the country of Tibet and ever since has been determined to eradicate its traditional culture. The young Dalai Lama was forced to flee, but has spent the rest of his life spreading his Buddhist teachings of peace. Here is a beautiful poster image of him, though I am not able to find its artist's identity.

    A protest that cost a great young boxer named Muhammad Ali nearly four years of his career happened in 1967 when he refused to be drafted into the U.S. Army because of his religious opposition to war. This charismatic man has since become an American icon, and was portrayed here by another icon, artist Andy Warhol.

    Sometimes a photograph becomes iconic of an era. This 1970 photograph taken by John Filo of the shooting death of Jeffrey Miller by Ohio National Guardsmen during an anti-Viet Nam war protest on the campus of Kent State University, and the anguish of Mary Ann Vecchio, sums up entirely the turmoil that our country was going through during those years.

    Riding upon the emotions of that time, some Native Americans finally spoke up about the injustices that had befallen their ancestors and those who followed in the 20th century. They organized a group called the American Indian Movement (AIM), which instigated protest actions that were often very controversial and/or illegal. In 2012 one of the movement's leaders passed away, Russell Means. Whatever one might think of his political tactics, Russell became an icon of that time of unrest. I like this uncredited pop style image of him.

    None of us will ever forget the sight of "Tank Man" (identity never known) standing up by himself before oncoming military tanks in Tiananmen Square in China, 1989. News photojournalist Jeff Widener describes the photo as a lucky shot. It came to summarize the courage of the young people who rallied there for democracy but were overtaken by the Chinese Army.

    My favorite, most courageous person of protest of today is a teenage girl from Pakistan named Malala Yousafzai. Her advocacy for the schooling of girls nearly cost her life when she was shot in the head by members of the Taliban. Now mostly healed, and recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, she is speaking to the whole world about the importance of the education of all females. Here is a popular poster of her, featuring some of her words.

    Also right now, everyone is atwitter about the mysterious UK graffiti artist, Banksy, and his recent controversial works in the city of New York. Does anyone remember that he "hit" San Francisco in 2010? Below is a bit of his political sarcasm in SF.

    And last but not least, the annual protest in Sonoma County's own backyard of the goings on at the Bohemian Grove enclave spawned this funny poster expressing the wild imaginings we regular people might have about those very special men and their secret weekends in the forest.
    Long live the world's protesters!

 

I DON'T LIKE THAT!

    It's ok if you don't like a piece of art. It doesn't mean that the artwork should not be presented to the world. You are just not having a rewarding experience by viewing it. If it's not your cup of tea, simply move on. It takes personal courage for an artist to present works to the public, knowing that they may be disdained and/or ignored. But the need for self-expression is so very powerful in humans, as is the desire to share the results.

    It is not highly unusual to see in local art festivals works that do not measure up to academic standards of technique, composition, and color. But who are we to deny a sincere artist a spot to present his or her efforts? Are there really any absolute rules about art? Absolutely not.

    Here are a few pieces by well-known artists that I don't enjoy looking at. It doesn't make them bad art because I don't enjoy them:

   Painter Mark Rothko did a huge series of color field paintings in the 1930s and 40s that just make me say, "Who cares?". 

   Revered sculptor Alexander Calder was praised in the 1930s for his mobiles, but they look like grade school projects to me.

    The grand booby prize from me goes to the self-proclaimed painter of light, Thomas Kinkade (may he rest in peace). I only want to see scenes like that in a Disney park.

    And here are some West Coast pieces that I DO find pleasurable or very interesting to view:

LA's Relja Penezic paints scenes that catch the essence of living in California. 

Sonoma County's Clark Mitchell has a history of perfectly depicting in pastels the forms and light of Northern California. 

To throw a curve here, I also love the works of the dearly departed bad boy of clay sculpture, Benicia's Robert Arneson.

    Each person's experience with art is unique, and that's just fine.

LOOK MA!

    Back in the early 1970s when I first began studying art in college, I went on assignment to a small art center in LA County to view a show on realism. I was totally unprepared for how sucked in I would get by viewing this show. This art movement was really becoming "the thing" at that time, being called either Super Realism or Photorealism.

    Decades earlier an urban realism became popularized by one of my favorites, artist Edward Hopper, with his 1942 painting Nighthawks becoming both beloved and parodied.

    So, with the Photorealism movement of the 1970s, gone was any stigma around the use of photographs as the basis of paintings. Artists graphed out the compositions with as much accuracy as possible, or even projected images onto canvas. With traditional brushes or with air brushes, these works were stunning in their clarity.
    Some of the works that were fabulous, I also relegate to what I call the school of "Look Ma What I Can Do!" painting. These works are incredible feats, yet don't reflect that much about our culture. Examples:

by Audrey Flack

by Charles Bell

by Robert Cottingham 

        My absolute favorites were works that did reflect aspects of American life:

by Richard Estes

by Robert Bechtle

by Chuck Close

    From Sonoma County, three artists who excel at producing realistic images:

by Jeannette Mahan of Santa Rosa

  

by Diana Lee of Santa Rosa

by Rik Olson of Sebastopol

 Treats for the eyes.

 These examples of artworks shine a spotlight for us onto our American lives

IS THIS IMPORTANT?

    Sometime in the past couple of decades the art world hijacked the word "important". "She is an important artist." "This is an important piece."
    No they're not. Well, rarely. What is important is food and shelter, love and compassion, freedom and security, education and productivity, and health.
    I think that the art world's use of the word "important" makes those who bestow this word upon artists or artworks feel important themselves, and they like that feeling. They can do it, and so they do. Both the bestowers and the bestowees should get over themselves.
    For an artwork to actually be important it should be either so beautiful, interesting, or so thought provoking that it moves all viewers, and they never forget the experience. An important artwork is spoken about decades, even centuries after its creation.

    Pictured here is a most obvious example of an important artwork, the Statue of Liberty, designed by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi and dedicated in 1886. Is there anyone on earth who is not moved by this sculpture?

    A more controversial choice for importance is the 2008 Obama Hope poster by graphic artist Shepard Fairey. This simple image symbolized the historic significance of that presidential race, and became its unofficial symbol, and always will be.

    Closer to home are two locally important public artworks. The 60 foot sculpture, Cyclisk, constructed by Mark Grieve and Ilana Spector, towers over Santa Rosa Avenue, upsetting the drabness of the business district surrounding it, and announcing that the city has some artistic spunk. On Petaluma's Phoenix Theater's lofty back wall, artist Ricky Watts has produced an unforgettable mural that cannot be overlooked by any passer by, merging Petaluma's deep history with the here and now. These two pieces inspire us to think about our local cultures. That is important.

 

GOOD EATS!

    Human beings have been foodies from the start. Seventeen thousand years ago the earliest artists on Earth paid homage deep inside caves in what is now France, to their fellow creatures whose lives they were taking in order that humans could eat and live, as in this cave painting at Lascaux.

    Through the ages we came to admire painted scenes of edibles, partly for the beauty of the fruits and vegetables, and partly for the symbolism of plenty. The fact that these skilled artists could replicate such a still life before the subjects of the painting shriveled and molded was a marvel. Here are 16th century's Georg Flegel, Johannes Vermeer of the mid-17th century, a 1750 piece by Jean-Baptiste Chardin, and a work by the famous Francisco Goya.

    Then in the 20th century artists began to have fun with it. Scenes began to be abstracted and colors became happy. I think this was a sign of a bountiful, confident society. Examples are early 20th century's American Mardsen Hartley, and the wildly popular works of Wayne Thiebaud.

    A couple current odes to food include works by locals Susan Greer of Santa Rosa, and Willow LaLand-Yeilding of Healdsburg.
    Bon appetite!