Painting with Zen and Cubism

Cubist Still Life Oil Painting on Canvas

Colorful Abstract Cubist Still life Painting

Shapes and colors that come together when I'm dreaming but still awake. 

"There is no music allowed..."

"How can I do that?"

Alone, no noise

Painting with cubism and zen. 

Andy Warhol's Shoes!

Andy Warhol's Shoes

I'm crazy about these shoes! I found a whole collection on MOMA website: http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=17459

Interesting article on Gorky

I just pulled this article from online listed below:
"Arshile Gorky was one of a generation of artists in 1930s New York who were fed by Roosevelt's New Deal while they studied the works of the European modern movement in Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art. By the 1940s, these painters were opening themselves to a Jungian unconscious of mythic forms; by around 1950, they were becoming famous for abstract, wall-filling visions of sublime mystery.

But by the time Jackson Pollock and the other abstract expressionists broke the ice, Gorky was dead. He killed himself in 1948, with his painting still in the movement's intermediate phase of development, not yet purely abstract; his tearpools of paintings swim with psychic metaphors and spectral shapes, shards of figures, washes of landscape".
Online Source of quote and photo: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/feb/12/arshile-gorky-tate-modern-review

I didn't realize that Gorky killed himself.  Whereas, I have admired his work, I do not know much about this artist. His work is interesting and moody.  Just the kind of art that I love!

Mythic forms ... Arshile Gorky's Garden in Sochi Motif (1942). Photograph: Arshile Gorky Estate/Belvedere Asset Management

Abstract Expressionism: My Shocking New View of the World

Abstract Oil Painting from early 1990's

I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. In many ways it is a very conservative area. Yet, there was a culture of abstraction in St. Louis, particularly abstract expressionism that flourished around Washington University when I lived there.

Oil painting from mid 1990's

I was in high school when I developed a strong interest in fine art. At 17 I went on a field trip to Washington University and had my first glimpse of abstract expressionism as well as nude models in life drawing class! I was shocked by both.

In the beginning I was horrified by the experience. Yet, within two years I was involved in life drawing classes and abstract art in design classes at a local college.  My view of the art world and my taste in art changed, dramatically and forever.

Alberto Giacometti

A wonderful artist who is most known for his sculptures is Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966).  However, I love his paintings more.  In the beginning of my art career I saw one of his oils at the Art Institute of Chicago and fell in love with his style.  His nervous lines, rubbed out surfaces and highly defined forms express an angst that speaks to me.  His work looks unfinished like a painting in progress that he just walked away from for a moment.  It's immediacy that gives his work a life an vibration that hooks me in and makes me want to know more. 

Painting by Alberto Giacometti

This style influenced other artists that were to follow such as Jim Dine and many working in the 1970's and 80's. 

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

Great Italian Lover, Amedeo Modigliani

Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920), charming, handsome and irresistible to women, was an Italian artist living in Paris in Montparnasse during his artistic years.  He spent much of his early career as a sculptor.  Living in deep poverty, he stole the stone he used from building sites in Paris. 
Modigliani was drawn the bohemian life which drew him to the drugs and seedier side of life. Through his studies he developed the philosophy that creativity was enhanced by disorder and rebellion.  The drugs, alcohol and illness sapped the strength from Modigliani and eventually he gave up carving in stone for the physically easier occupation of painting portraits.  Yet, one can see the depth of form in his paintings that came from his 3-D work.
Modigliani and Picasso were friends and rivals in Paris.  It seems that both artists reflect an influence of each other by painting in a cubistic style that for a time shares characteristics.  Picasso owned several of Modigliani's paintings.  However, he seemed to feel that Modigliani was exaggerating behaviors to enhance his image.  At one point he commented, 'It's odd but you never see Modigliani drunk anywhere but at the corners of the boulevard Montmartre and the boulevard Raspail.' http://www.artchive.com/artchive/M/modigliani.html
Modigliani produced great quantities of work which lends credibility to Picasso's comment.  I don't think it's possible to create as many works of art as Amedeo did and drink all the time. 
In the early years of WWI Modigliani became involved with South African writer Beatrice Hastings. She was somewhat successful and was able to provide a living for Modigliani. Even so, the relationship did not go well. It was marred by excessive drinking and abuse. At one point Modigliani threw Beatrice out a window.
He had numerous love affairs but most did not last long.  However, these affairs did produce beautiful paintings that have in time made Modigliani a famous Modern Art Master and added to his image as a Great Latin Lover.

Amedeo Modigliani

Amedeo Modigliani, The Great Latin Lover Part II

When I was 19 I first saw some of the many paintings of female nudes by the famous Modern Art Master, Amedeo Modigliani, in Chicago. At that time I knew very little about the artist but I was struck by how sensual and lush his paintings were. He paints the female model as if he were the lover.
Later I found out.  Indeed, he was!  Amedeo Modigliani, an Italian artist living in Paris, was wildly handsome and had no problem attracting the women who flocked to him, posed for him and were discared for the next edition.
It was in 1917 that he met the beautiful 19 year old Jeanne. They fell in love but her parents were opposed to their daughter's involvement with Modigliani. For good reason. They saw him as a druken derelict which is what he had become in his years in Paris. Addicted not only to alcohol but also narcotics, Modigliani was not the perfect companion for their lovely daughter.  One eye-witness, André Salmon, reports:
"He was dragging her along by an arm, gripping her frail wrist, tugging at one or another of her long braids of hair, and only letting go of her for a moment to send her crashing against the railings of the Luxembourg. He was like a madman, crazy with savage hatred." http://www.artchive.com/artchive/M/modigliani.html

In 1920 the story ends. Modigliani, the great Italian lover and artist, died at the age of 35 of tubercular meningitis. Shortly after that his young, beautiful and nine months pregnant girlfriend threw herself from a window. Both the mother and baby died.
There was another baby daughter who was born in 1918, she survived the death of her parents and went on to research and preserve the history of her parents.  From Modigliani's life and death a legend was created.  It seems there is a current movie that has been released on his life.

Jeanne Hébuterne

Drawing, Painting and Alice Neel

My baby

My baby

Last night I fixed a big bowl of popcorn and watched the documentary on the life of Alice Neel created by her grandson, Andrew Neel. In a nutshell she lived a classic artist's life. She had several tumultuous relationships, four children and spent her life in poverty. In her 70's she became famous.

 

My son

Alice Neel is called a portrait painter. Technically she is but I've never thought of her that way. I think of Alice Neel as a painter who liked to paint people. She painted other things as well as people but it was the heart and soul of another that she liked to capture. My definition of a portrait painter is an artist who paints people on commission. That was not Alice Neel even though, she may have done this at the end of her life.

She painted people the way Picasso did, to capture their spirit.  Her paintings are psychologically probing, not the sort of painting that flatters the individual sitter.  To me this isn't portrait painting.

My husband

Crazy Relationships and Art

In her early years it seems that Alice Neel was ruled by romantic love.  She seemed to fall head over heals in love and then later suffer the consequences, like many of us!  Art comes along for the ride to document and our art often bails us out, emotionally.

One of her children died and she lost a little girl in her marriage split-up. Her husband's family raised the child in Cuba. As a result, she spent time in a mental institution.

In her mid to late 30's she had two boys. Each of them was a result of a different love affair, one with a younger Latino man and one with a documentary filmmaker. In these years of struggle, she rarely sold a painting and lived on welfare. She raised her boys on the dole and yet, they both managed to go to college and become financially successful.

Still life drawing

Alice Neel lived in the same apartment in a poor neighborhood in New York for most of her life. She moved to Spanish Harlem from Greenwich Village early on and stayed for most of her remaining years. Like Picasso she filled her living space with stacks of paintings. It's interesting to see the progression in her art and glimpses of her shabby apartment in NYC in the documentary.  Suffer for Art?  Alice Neel did but late in life she reinvented herself as a famous artist.  Amazing!

Alice Neel did the impossible. She did not live on her art but she lived for her art. She did not get a job, make a living or stay with a man. She managed to keep painting in spite of hardships and deep poverty. 
 

What of the many artists who have sacrificed for their art but did not, in the end, become well-known?  Or what of the artists who only became famous after they died in poverty, obscurity and misery?  Such is the creative life!  We live for the journey.

Drawings by Charlotte Rossmann

Artist Francis Bacon

Study for Self-Portrait by Artist Francis Bacon

Crucify 3 by Artist Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon

Above is the work Francis Bacon, Irish born, English artist.  He is very famous for extreme paintings that depict violent, repressed and anxious feelings. The reason I like his work is that it's so personal, so intense and not mainstream. His art has impact born of a terrific talent, scarred past and deep emotion. No, it's not pretty but it is powerful. The paintings come from his soul. There is great painterly quality in Bacon's work, the scrubbing and changing and moving of the paint on the surface of the canvas pulls the viewer into the art.  This style works to bring more intensity to the emotional content of the work.

Growing up in Ireland, Francis Bacon experienced violence at an early age. He described an experience of hiding in a ditch and viewing a violent political murder as a small boy. He was forever marked by his insecure an violent childhood. A lot is made of the fact that Bacon was gay. At the time he was alive it was less accepted but also he had wild life, gambling, drinking in London's Soho which was somewhat a reflection on his life choice. He called this lifestyle, "rough trade".

He was born in 1909 and died in 1992. In his last years he settled down and lived a quiet life. I saw photos of his studio with trash piled everywhere. He liked the chaos and felt that was the best soil for his creative life.

An interesting quote by Margaret Thatcher concerning Francis Bacon: "that man who paints those dreadful pictures."  Dreadful? Maybe.  Life can be dreadful and for Bacon it was his place and his time to give meaning to the feeling of anxiety that a violent past produces.

CharlotteRossmann.com