Cubism

I became interested in Cubism after I first left art studies and was struggling to find my path and style as an artist.  I went back to take a life drawing class and became interested in cubism at that time.  I learned that Paul Cezanne was the artist that first inspired Cubism.  Although, it was Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso who took the style further and were credited with inventing the movement. 

Paul Cezanne

Braque and Picasso were rivals but they were also friends who worked together.  Picasso said, "we worked so closely together that I couldn't tell his work from mine".  

Georges Braque

Pablo Picasso

After I finished with the life drawing class I started working on cubist drawings.  

At this time, I did not do very many oil paintings.  I did several portraits in oil but focused primarily on drawing. Many years later, I moved into Cubist paintings. 

This painting is fairly recent.  It took many years to develop my own style of Cubism.  Each artist has a style that motivates them to continue to paint.  For me, Cubism has been that style.  It's a very analytical approach to art that has many different paths and avenues of exploration.  That's the main reason that I find it fascinating enough to still paint.  There's always some new path to approach form and color with Cubism which keeps me interested.  For me, there's the added desire to work with color relationships, along with the cubist method of analyzing form. 

  

Crazy Art or Crazy Artists?

Is it a myth that Artists are CraZy?  

Yes, it is a myth. Creative people may not be mainstream but that doesn't mean they are crazy.
Picasso painted images that might have looked crazy but he had a strong grip on reality.  Picasso had a tumultuous love life and he seemed to think that his lovers were crazy as this painting suggests:

Picasso's lover

Yet, in spite of most artists being sane, there are artists who seem to have had genuine mental issues:

Vincent Van Gogh killed himself at the age of 37 and suffered from some unknown ailment throughout his life.  He may have been bipolar or an addict but in reality, we do not know. This self portrait was created after Vincent chopped off his ear.

Van Gogh's ear

Edvard Munch suffered from a variety of emotional issues, depression and hallucinations. Mental illness ran in his family. He credited his mental illness for the creation of his most famous work, "The Scream".

Munch's famous painting

Francisco Goya at the age of 46 came down with a mysterious mental illness that affected his painting style.  This painting came after his breakdown.

Goya Painting

Georgia O'Keefe was hospitalized for depression and anxiety at the age of 46.  However, I'm not sure she was crazy.  This was a time when Georgia was living with a bossy, old man (Alfred Stieglitz) who also cheated on her.  After he died and she moved to New Mexico, she thrived and her art blossomed. Stieglitz who was a photographer, he created a beautiful series of photos of O'Keefe though the years of their relationship.   

Georgia O'Keefe

Alice Neel, like Georgia O'Keefe, went through a rough patch.  After an early marriage, Neel lost a young child to diphtheria.  Shortly after she had another child and her husband who was Cuban left Alice and took their daughter to live with his family in Cuba.  Alice was unable to get her daughter back and her relationship with both husband and child ended.  After that, she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for a nervous breakdown. Her life was filled with more relationship drama.  She went on to have two sons by different fathers and managed to support them as a single mother on welfare and painter in the government program, WPA which employed artists during the depression. Bohemian? Yes. Crazy? Probably not.  In the 1960's her years of success and fame began.

Alice Neel

Matisse: Living Color in the Midst of a Black and White World

When it comes to use of Color, Henri Matisse is your man.
Born in 1869, he died in 1954. He created some of the most beautiful color work in the world of art. His work is peaceful, gorgeous, easy to look at and above all infused with beautiful color schemes and harmonies.
Considering the time frame that Matisse lived through one wonders how he managed to create art that seems to be an island of perfect harmony in hues when the world was going to Hell in a hand basket.
Matisse lived through a most devastating time in history. Picasso, a contemporary of Matisse suffered in his art. The neurotic, psychotic trail Picasso left in paint marks the 20th century with the angst of modern man. This was the 20th century: two world wars, atom bombs, mass extermination, horrific destruction, brutality beyond what the world had seen all broadcast in the big screen in living color. For the average person life was anxiety ridden with political forces threatening further damage and destruction. Picasso reflected this turmoil, creating work that furthered anxiety. But Matisse? Picasso allowed almost all color to drain from the sharp edges of his canvas as holocaustic photos in black and white splashed across newspapers of bombed out buildings. It's as if he had no heart for the tender rose and mauve colors of happier days. But Matisse? Matisse's world was the shelter from the storm, the calm center in a world gone mad. He used to color to bring back the joy and smiles of humanity. Whereas another artist might go into the storm and for inspiration Matisse isolated the ideal, denied reality and continued to create art for all centuries. When the winds of change turned the world more peaceful, Matisse was there with his gorgeous color to welcome back the light.
Matisse Created the world Baudelaire imagined in his poem L'Invitation al Voyage:
"Furniture gleaming with the sheen of years would grace our bedroom; the rarest flowers, mingling their odours with vague whiffs of amber, the painted ceilings, the fathomless mirrors, the splendour of the East ... all of that would speak, in secret, to our souls, in its gentle language. There, everything is order and beauty, luxury, calm and pleasure."

Carnival Painting

This painting is from my Carnival Series: http://charlotterossmann.com/Page%20Five.htm

Picasso in Paris

Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973)  was born in Spain but he lived most of his life in France.  The two backgrounds blend into making what Picasso became.  I can't imagine that he would have developed his style in quite the same way if he had not moved to France.  There is the Spanish passion that Picasso brings to the light and color of France which combine to make such a dynamic statement.   

For whatever reason I felt I was with Picasso in Montmarte in his bleak artistic garret.  He lived the classic artist's life in the early years.  When he started out in Paris, Picasso was very poor.  At one point he shared a studio with the poet, Max Jacob.  The apartment was so tiny that only one could sleep there at a time.  One worked by day and one by night.  They were so poor, they even shared a hat!

Next he lived with a mistress in a damp, dirty, and dilapidated apartment at 13, rue Ravignan in Montmartre at the Bateau Lavoire.  He was a young and promising artist and in 1905-6, he painted the portrait of Gertrude Stein in his tiny, unheated broken down, studio.  Gertrude Stein was a wealthy American who had many art buyers in her circle of friends.  She also hosted parties for artists.  Through this connection and others like her Picasso became well known in Paris.

In time Picasso became very wealthy.  At one point he filled his house up with paintings and junk.  Since Picasso never threw anything away, he simply locked the doors, walked away and found another house to live in.  He didn't like people to move things or clean his house so he lived with the trash and junk he kept around him even when he lived in mansions.

There are books on the many women in Picasso's life.  He had a long string of lovers and many artist friends.  He was dynamic, forceful and very appealing.  After he became successful he had a circle of associates that surrounded him.  He was like a rock star before there were rock stars!

Picasso in Paris