As always, Carter was prophetic. " (..) power to reveal meanings that transcend the power of language. Before the ineffable, we willingly fall silent. (...)
The ineffable is still the force, maybe the only one, we can seek to avoid dependence on packaging explanations, because value is in the intrinsic power of each single piece, not in the context it can however never do without.
But even Rothko fell for the tradition of Modernist defensiveness when he tried to set the boundaries of creativity. Memory, history, geometry are as legitimate instruments to achieve quality as any other, including the reduction to essential forms.
An important point--that every work of art needs a context, in fact, always has one, but value is in the work itself, not the context. As for all that Rothko wanted to exclude--you're right, there is no reason to ignore the possibilities offered by memory, history, and geometry. And, anyway, how is it possible for an artist to set aside memory? Or history, which is shared memory? Rothko was especially hostile to geometry, which he identified with Mondrian and his utopian, universalizing aesthetic. Art, he believed, had to be absolutely individual--another impossibility, like a language spoken by only one person. If only one person speaks it, it's not a language.
thanks for reviving this essay; his death seems sadder in retrospect. I have always wondered why the Artist doubted himself so much and his communication, because so so many people have been transfixed and transformed before his works. What a great achievement.
Reduction or simplification is a means for revealing what is missing; or perhaps answers to the questions, what I'm I doing and why am I doing it. Riddles with which all twentieth century painting seem to struggle.
Your comment reminds me of the beginning of "The New Spirit" by John Ashbery. "I thought that if I could put it all down, that would be one way. And next the thought came to me that to leave all out, would be another, and truer, way."
"I’m not very good at explaining my work... I'm unable to do so because I feel that my poetry is the explanation. The explanation of what? Of my thought, whatever that is. As I see it, my thought is both poetry and the attempt to explain that poetry; the two cannot be disentangled." --Ashbery
As always, Carter was prophetic. " (..) power to reveal meanings that transcend the power of language. Before the ineffable, we willingly fall silent. (...)
The ineffable is still the force, maybe the only one, we can seek to avoid dependence on packaging explanations, because value is in the intrinsic power of each single piece, not in the context it can however never do without.
But even Rothko fell for the tradition of Modernist defensiveness when he tried to set the boundaries of creativity. Memory, history, geometry are as legitimate instruments to achieve quality as any other, including the reduction to essential forms.
An important point--that every work of art needs a context, in fact, always has one, but value is in the work itself, not the context. As for all that Rothko wanted to exclude--you're right, there is no reason to ignore the possibilities offered by memory, history, and geometry. And, anyway, how is it possible for an artist to set aside memory? Or history, which is shared memory? Rothko was especially hostile to geometry, which he identified with Mondrian and his utopian, universalizing aesthetic. Art, he believed, had to be absolutely individual--another impossibility, like a language spoken by only one person. If only one person speaks it, it's not a language.
thanks for reviving this essay; his death seems sadder in retrospect. I have always wondered why the Artist doubted himself so much and his communication, because so so many people have been transfixed and transformed before his works. What a great achievement.
Yes, Rothko is great, and his self-doubt eludes our understanding, as so much does.
Reduction or simplification is a means for revealing what is missing; or perhaps answers to the questions, what I'm I doing and why am I doing it. Riddles with which all twentieth century painting seem to struggle.
Your comment reminds me of the beginning of "The New Spirit" by John Ashbery. "I thought that if I could put it all down, that would be one way. And next the thought came to me that to leave all out, would be another, and truer, way."
"I’m not very good at explaining my work... I'm unable to do so because I feel that my poetry is the explanation. The explanation of what? Of my thought, whatever that is. As I see it, my thought is both poetry and the attempt to explain that poetry; the two cannot be disentangled." --Ashbery