483 · Pink Man

I got one answer from Anne Harris:

Golden Boy--- I can see why this was chosen by one of the owners-- The promising future shown by golden road and sun, the smirk of satisfaction shown on the "Boss's" face, and the disgruntled man on right whose power is threatened by this handsome young man with the determined chin. I love the shark's heads implying the perils ahead, and the thoughtful bird in the background, observing it all wisely. And the fawning goose in foreground representing adoring hangers-on. A strong painting, very Kandinski like in it's color patterns. What pleasure and thought your paintings must bring to that office building!

Thank you, Anne! Last week's painting belongs to a series that I confessed to be not quite at ease with. "Pink Man" is peculiar because of the ugly side men. This week's painting belongs to the other end of the pole. "Two Clowns" is kind of embarrassing for me because at first sight it looks like kitsch.

It is not easy to define what kitsch is and why this painting causes embarrassing feelings for me. I won't tackle this subject here, I guess it suffices to inform you. After looking around for a while on this image, I saw that this picture has high-quality also and, maybe in consequence, the uneasy feeling vanished.

The overall composition is similar to other works of the time, even similar to "Pink Man", which is just 10 numbers earlier. The pane is divided into lots of compartments, each showing heads and animals.

This time, the hero and his best friend (or guardian angel) are disguised as clowns. At first look they seem to be painted in a very conventional manner. The mood is friendly, confident, but nevertheless tense. Obviously, this man is not alone, but nothing really seems to matter except him.

Now project yourself into this hero. I pretend that you have a description of your situation in life. I'm not educated in philosophy, but I know that philosophers have investigated the question whether there is proof that anything except yourself really does exist.

There are large religious groups on this earth believing that the outside world doesn't have as much reality as we western people think. Modern physics, scrutinizing the infinitely small, found that their theories surprisingly began to resemble old mystical statements from these foreign cultures.

Even in business newsletters distributed on the Internet, people work with the hypotheses that the world is formed by the thoughts of the individual. Actually, this is big business called "Positive Thinking".

All this is very puzzling and affects everybody without knowing the details, may they care about it or not. Nobody knows exactly how this happens, but happily we have a term for this phenomenon: Zeitgeist.

The zeitgeist of this whole time has been labeled "New Age", and much of it is big business indeed. But there are some people who look deeper.

Last Sunday, I took some time to read two essays of Christos Hatzis. As a modern composer, he tries to get an overall picture of his position in the history of music as well as the direction to go in concordance to the time and its intention. He contends that New Age is an appropriate term to describe a trend to spirituality which he pursues in his own art.

During the last decade, I used that term also (see My painting and the 80ies, Article for the French-American literary journal "Frank", Paris) but dropped it thereafter because of the negative connotation caused by superficial developments serving mostly money making endeavors.

Christos holds that this neither diminishes the importance of the phenomenon nor touches the description given by the original meaning of the term.

To come back to our painting: This painting isn't modern in the sense we know this term. Modern painting isn't personal at all. Modern painting is cerebral, cynical, ugly, provocative, distanced, indirect, commentary, analytical, reflective, all very much in contrast to this painting.

Here the painter doesn't pretend to know all and everything. This painting doesn't describe anything in the outside world. This painting talks about the soul. Soul is another misused term, denoting big business as well. Therefore I'm not very happy with this term either.

But the subject proper isn't that new at all, if you look at other disciplines. Hermann Hesse and Thomas Mann wrote big books 50 and 70 and more years ago, to name just two examples.

I remember one passage from the 1200 page epos "Joseph and his Brothers", retelling the biblical 20 page story, where Mann lets Joseph say to the merchants who bought him from his brothers: "I am the navel of the world".

Then Mann proceeds to show that this was a very personal and humble assertion for Joseph, but the merchants, of course, thought of him to be extremely arrogant at least.

In the history of painting, I only know of one modern master who touched this subject: Max Beckmann. Of course, this is my humble opinion only. What do you think? I'd really like to know.

Time to wish you a Merry Christmas! I will take a break for three weeks, so the next issue will be in the first week of January 1999.

Time also to present my Christmas gift to you: I launched a new service called

Monthly Give Away.

Every month I will donate one or more of my works, preferably an original print. I start off with the most valuable item I have in this range. It is a large colored woodcut, at the same time a large watercolor original.

If you would like to possess one of my works for free, this is your chance. I hope you like my gift.

Also, I hope you have had a fulfilling life during this year and wish you the same for next year. Happy New Year!

Masthead images this time by Joe at Gallery Clay.

All the best 'til next time. Yours truly,

PS:
If you have enjoyed this issue, please support my efforts and recommend it to a friend. For your convenience, you can mail an invitation with a click or use the Recommend-It button at the bottom.

PPS:
I have created a site map for Art Quarter to ease navigation and supplied a search feature, too. Check them out! Example: If you want to read what I said about Rembrandt or Rubens or Renoir or Tarot: Now you can find it very fast.

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