White Sands, acrylic on panel © Michael Maurer Smith 2009
Whether it is a patina born of weather and age or the result of intentional scarring, scumbling, scratching, and dragging by the painter’s brush, etcher’s scribe or limner’s silver rod, all we ever see, with our unassisted eyes, is the surface. It is the gift and curse that reveals itself fully only to those prepared to receive and perceive it.
The surface of the artwork may offer the physical residue of its maker’s feeling. The best ones do. Yet the viewer will never know how much of what he or she sees is the direct expression of the artist’ passion and how much is artifice and deceit—filler and technique.
Paintings, drawing, sculpture, and to a lesser extent photographs, all come into being by human intent and making. They are made knowingly and with a purpose, which imbues them with history and meaning, therefore art is to be seen and read—interpreted in dialog between the viewer and artist, even when the artist is not present.
Art is human skill and imagination made manifest. A sunset may be beautiful but it is not art. Human hands do not make it. It may be enjoyed and shared, but an actual sunset cannot be created, collected and given as a gift from one human being to another or to all.
However, the representation of a sunset may be realized as an art object that can be packaged, shared, reproduced, collected, bought, sold and appreciated. Of course it cannot deliver the experiential joy and suffering of art making nor can it deliver the pleasures of aesthetic contemplation and appreciation to those who lack imagination and receptiveness. Said differently the art experience remains perceptual and individual and the mere possession of the art object means little if its possessor lacks the imagination and knowledge to appreciate what that object may represent.
The surface is never the truth it represents. It may announce meaning or meanings but cannot make them—that is the responsibility of the artist and the viewer. The surface is the invitation to dialog and inquiry and never the end of discussion. Beauty and truth are indeed in the eyes and mind of the beholder.
© Michael Maurer Smith 2009
I love this painting, Mike. And I would love it even if it weren’t called White Sands.
Thanks Jane. This is one that sold from the show and it actually was inspired by White Sands.
This post, and the little discussion between Tony and Carmina have been much on my mind, at least partly because the concepts are new, and difficult for me to think about.
Finally, I found an entry point in your comment that “art is to be seen and read—interpreted in dialog between the viewer and artist, even when the artist is not present.”
It reminded me of a story told by Joan Didion in her “White Album”. She had taken her seven year old daughter to see O’Keeffe’s work at the Chicago Art Institute. Quoting Didion:
“One of the vast O’Keeffe ‘Sky Above Clouds’ canvases floated over the bank stairs in the (Institute) that day, dominating what seemed to be several stories of empty light, and my daughter looked at it once, ran to the landing, and kept on looking. ‘Who drew it?’, she whispered after a while. I told her. ‘I need to talk to her,” she said finally.
Didion goes on to suggest her daughter was making some “style-is-character” assumptions, and perhaps she was. But certainly, that is as clear an example of an opening dialogue between artist and viewer as you could hope for. Apparently schooling in aesthetics and art appreciation, and a specialized vocabulary aren’t needed for the dialogue to begin!
I smiled at this: “The surface is never the truth it represents”. I’ve written enough poetry now to have encountered the question, “What does your poem mean?” I’m always a little speechless, wondering if “Watching Comet Lulin”, for example, could be reduced to, “It’s a poem about looking at a comet with a cat.”
I remember hearing this statement: “If I could just say it, I wouldn’t have to write a poem.” Surely somewhere there’s a painter who’s said, “If I could put it in words, I wouldn’t have to paint it!”
Didion is another writer I enjoy. I loved the reference.
A specialized vocabulary is not necessary to appreciate art however, the willingness to immerse oneself in the experience is. Children are naturally curious, and their observation of art is unfettered by expectations of what it is “supposed” to be. That said, a specialized vocabulary can help articulate what in the experience is gratifying (or not) and help find meanings in the work beyond the surface and formal elements.
Adults, can never approach art with the innocence of a child. On the other hand the child cannot appreciate the multi-layered meanings inherent in a painting’s surface. Didion’s daughter was brought into a direct relationship with the Cloud painting—it spoke to her and engaged her. Yet as a child she could not recognize many aspects of O’Keffee’s life that influenced that work and are apparent in it for those possessing the knowledge to see them. This is much like reading a book before one has the life experience to more fully appreciate its meaning. All good art has more to give each time the viewer/reader returns to it—ideally wiser and more experienced.
By-the-way, whenever I am in Santa Fe ( I try to get there at least once a year) I visit the O’Keffee museum. If you have not been there it is well worth the trip.
Insight can come in the most amazing ways.
Driving up US 61 through the Mississippi Delta last week, I looked out at the flat, nearly featureless landscape and – thought about your comments about surface in this post! As a matter of fact, I remembered your exact words: “The surface is never the truth it represents.”
The analogy between landscape and a painting may be rough, but I think it can be made. Just an hour into the Delta, I had no idea what I was looking at – what things “meant”. It was all “surface”. For example, there were no fences, the fields were huge, and houses weren’t neatly spaced in grids but clustered together here and there in identical groups. Eventually, it began to be clear to me – I was looking at the residue of the plantation system – quite different from family farming in Iowa.
In the same way, I was astonished by the absolute flatness of the land – and it took some time to remember the River, and the centuries before levees, and begin to understand that the Mississippi had shaped the land and made it what it is. Over and over I thought, “Now, what is this?” Sometimes I got an answer and sometime I didn’t, but by the time I came back down those roads, I was seeing the landscape in an entirely new way.
Now that I’m home, other mysteries have been solved – why the Louisiana and Mississippi deltas differ so from each other, what those brick obelisques are all over the Louisiana delta, where the cotton has gone. With more reading and study, I’ll be able to plunge far more deeply into the life and culture when I go back – a wiser and more experienced traveler.
I’ve always appreciated Paulo Freire’s action/reflection model from his Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Now, it seems the same dynamic can be a part of appreciating art (or landscapes, or cultures!) – although encounter/reflection might be more appropriate terms for art.
At any rate, your reflections on “surface” enriched a trip through Mississippi immeasurably – I can’t wait to start writing about it all!