Hajo Düchting (1949–2017)

I suppose that sometimes one must make a choice, but I’d like to think that when it comes to it, I am more likely to be inclusive than exclusive. The old world can be a little scary—the small exclusive club upstairs with lots of rules, the much larger downstairs area with even more rules—although even so, I wasn’t sure that I was going to like Kandi. I mean, we’ve all probably had the experience of looking at an abstract painting and not knowing “how we were supposed to feel”, right. But reading about him made me like him. Kandi’s career began in the last years of the old world, perhaps, the years before the First World War, and he had his roots in Impressionism and had an affinity for fairy tales and spirituality—things some people would put ahead of what he did later, when he moved from strength to strength. I mean, apparently he was never a good portrait painter, but his landscapes and his Impressionist work seem very magical to me, and I don’t know why even at that stage some of the snobs were against him. And of course, then he moved on, to a sort of color-exploration—an abstract exploration of color! Of course grey and red make people feel different things, silly! 🤪 “But how am I Supposed to feel?” Well, how Do you feel, why don’t we start with that? 😎

…. I don’t think I’ll go painting by painting, but colors do make you feel certain things, eg they’re ‘warm’ or ‘cool’ or ‘neutral’, for example; and then in certain paintings one gets the feeling that certain colors, a certain color-area, is opposed (or perhaps converses with or indeed perhaps rivals) another color-area…. You can get a feeling from things without it being like, Here is the general. He is sitting on his horse. You know, this general fought in Video Game IV: Rise of the Mutants, in which he and his Roman allies got 74,000 experience points. (They were white men, and heroes!)

It doesn’t have to be like that. You can get emotion from very simple, very pure things.

…. Kandi was actually very religious; he believed in “The expression of mystery by means of mystery.” I love that. I think that’s one reason why abstraction can be good; it’s a mystery and you have to decide what it means, or perhaps discover one of the meanings. It’s not painting a general on a horse, so that some snob can say, “I know that general’s name; his name was General Labél….”

…. It is kinda weird that Herr Düchting, working and being paid on the idea that Kandi is worth talking about, makes sometimes vague weird criticisms that he’s having fun instead of, I don’t know, Being Worthwhile?…. I like art; it’s fun, and I love books and even Germanness, although I love to crack into the haughty krauts, you know; it’s people like that, who turn something you could literally at least partially enjoy without being able to read a book into this weird weird thing that is sufficiently German to be Worthwhile, you know.

Carlos Contact: I am an artist!
Jason Bourne: /thwack/! Chee-sah! /martial arts/

You know. Fun: sometimes, not illegal.

…. A few people have dissented, but we’re still basically taught that education is this perfect immutable thing that we adapt ourselves to: you read Homer, you admire Shakespeare—YOU, on the other hand, /don’t matter/. And so we plan out our days, not knowing that they are irregular; petty action like grooming or sleeping can take up more time one day to another, (I guess I could read in some magazine about how to get rid of dandruff in a more effective way, but my whole way of being until recently is that I never read magazines, and if I did I might end up spending more time rather than less grooming); “Man plans; God laughs”, as they say. I think Kandi kinda gets that, with the irregularity. Of course, some of the avant-gardists weren’t spiritual, naturally—Mommy, God was mean to me! Send him away! Send him, AWAY! And bring me a sammich! 😾—but it’s hard not to get with Kandi that life is not a plan that man makes, which is something you might get with the baroque era of art, despite its positive features.

And, of course, the other way to say that is that your life has to work for you. Money-girl Suze says that in her book of money-laws/life-lessons. There’s no one correct way to think about money; it depends on what you want your life to be like. There’s no one correct way to look at risk, for example…. But there is one correct way to look at Homer: he’s the greatest painter, and the most Catholic. 😗

…. I like it Mommy; it’s pretty! I like pretty! Just like I like my balloon! Hey Mommy…. Hey Mommy…. Hey Mommy!!
—Whuh-ut.
Do you think this is a balloon, or an abstract shape? (he lets go of it, and instead of floating away, it kinda hangs out for a few seconds before merging with the wall). (gasp of delight) Mommy, we must be in a painting we can walk around in! We must be in a painting by the ascended Master, Wassily Kandinsky! 😛🎈… (altro)

Impresionismus vznikl v šedesátých letech 19. století v Paříži, jednom z nejživějších a nejvíce vzrušujících měst Evropy, jež bylo zároveň významnou metropolí umění s dlouhou tradicí francouzského uměleckého vývoje. Přísná umělecká pravidla druhého císařství (Second Empire) vyloučila mnoho malířů z možnosti vystavovat, a tedy i regulérně prodávat.Proti takovému systému organizace umění se několik mladších malířů začalo stavět na odpor. Novým malířským stylem, který byl později pokřtěn na impresionismus, tito malíři nejen protestovali proti dosavadnímu řízenému provozování francouzského umění, ale stali se i průkopníky moderního umění 20. století. Umění impresionismu Jak je poznáme?… (altro)

A competent and affordable introduction to the life, work and impact of the artist, the inventor of the Pointillist style of painting. it's slightly irritating that the text is often discussing a painting reproduced several pages away, but - y'know, books in this series don't cost more than some paperback novels, so don't be complaining too hard...

Seurat had a number of important influences, including the contemporary Impressionists, but perhaps the most significant were not artists but scientists. He absorbed all the latest theories of colour and used them to develop the extraordinary effects of Pointillism - paintings composed entirely of dots of colour - usually of unmixed, single pigment paints, relying on proximity of dots and distance of the observer to create mixed colours in the eye, which the science had demonstrated gave a brighter, less muddy colour effect.

Oddly, his genius was better recognised during his lifetime than in the immediate aftermath: Thirty or so years after his death, The Metropolitan Museum of Art turned down the purchase of one of his greatest works - it was bought instead by the Art Institute of Chicago, where it still hangs. Now, of course, he's considered to have been exceptional and a sad loss, dying young, but leaving a huge impact on the development of Western art - the second step towards Abstract art after the original Impressionists. It's a pity that no sane format of book can ever really do justice to the Pointillist technique when fully reproducing even modestly sized paintings, but this gives you an idea - go see the real things if you ever have opportunity.… (altro)