The Seeking Artist
Last month, I experienced the supreme thrill of standing in the studio of Joaquin Sorolla in Madrid, Spain and taking in a beautiful collection of his paintings. I was in sacred space and took it all in with awe and more than a few tears. This was a man who loved light, loved painting, and loved his family. Bravura strokes of thick paint on a foundation of perfect drawing was realistic and expressive at the same time.
Joaquin Sorolla, Valencia Fisherwomen
I had a very different experience in the Museu Picasso in Barcelona. I went reluctantly, hoping to love Picasso afterall. The works were arranged chronologically. In the first room, a portrait of his father at age 14 was jaw-dropping. It had similar qualities to Sorolla's work...realistic and expressive. Painted at such a young age, Picasso was clearly a “Mozart” of painting.
Pablo Picasso, age 14!, portrait of his father
In the last rooms, I felt bubbling exasperation. His was a talent that was wasted, where distortions on truth went from dark to silly.
Picasso, later works
My comparative assessment might lead the reader to believe that I do not like anything other than representational art. Not true! An exhibit of Piet Mondrian's work at the Seattle Art Museum several years ago was transformative. Mondrian was a painter who, as a theosophist, sought to understand the mysteries of the universe and the bonds that unite the universe, humanity and the divine.
I construct lines and color combinations on a flat surface, in order to express general beauty with the utmost awareness. Nature (or, that which I see) inspires me, puts me, as with any painter, in an emotional state so that an urge comes about to make something, but I want to come as close as possible to the truth and abstract everything from that, until I reach the foundation (still just an external foundation!) of things… I believe it is possible that, through horizontal and vertical lines constructed with awareness, but not with calculation, led by high intuition, and brought to harmony and rhythm, these basic forms of beauty, supplemented if necessary by other direct lines or curves, can become a work of art, as strong as it is true.
A progression of Mondrian's work from representation in the early years to abstraction in later years.
So, I separate those artists who “seek” from those who “know”. Perhaps it is a distinction that helps me separate "good" art from "bad" art. Sorolla and Mondrian both looked to nature to seek truth, with a very different result.
Sorolla says:
When an artist begins to count strokes instead of regarding nature he is lost. This preoccupation with technique, at the expense of truth and sincerity, is the principal fault I find in much of the work of modern painters....Go to nature with no parti pris (preconceived opinion or bias). You should not know what your picture is to look like until it is done. Just see the picture that is coming.
Sorolla invites you to remove opinion or bias and let the truth speak to you. He as painter and you as viewer seek together. Picasso, in contrast, in his later work puts his opinion and bias front and center and invites only his vision.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the comparison between Velazquez' “Las Meninas”--which I saw at the Prado--and Picasso's interpretation of Las Meninas, which I saw a few days later in his museum. In Velasquez' painting we participate with the artist.
Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas
The artist has painted himself painting a portrait but he looking at us! We are the subject and Velazquez has put us, the viewers, in the position of the royalty he is painting! (The small rectangle on the back wall to the left of the doorway is a mirror revealing the king and queen of Spain who are standing in front of him...and now we are standing in their place as Velazquez looks at us!). His brush is suspended and is seeking its next stroke, in the context of that room, beautiful composed with light and shadow as his tools. We are paid a double compliment, seeking with Velazquez and being sought!
Picasso's version removes us from participation (and blasphemed Velazquez, I might add).
Picasso's take on Las Meninas
We stand apart, the artist is not seeking us, but instead wants us to seek him! Picasso himself says:
If anyone were to copy Las Meninas in complete good faith, and for example got to a certain point – and if I were the copier – would say to myself, and if I just put this a little more to the right or to the left? I would try to do it in my own way, forgetting about Velázquez.
Sorolla, in contrast, speaking about Velasquez' technique, says:
If ever a painter wrought a miracle of illusion with brush and pigment that painter was Velazquez in his 'Las Meninas,' at the Prado in Madrid. Now, I have studied this picture with a lens, and what do I find? Why, that Velazquez got that marvelous atmospheric background by one broad sweep of his flowing brush, charged with thin color so thin that you can feel the very texture of the canvas through it. Nature, the sun itself, produces color effects on this same principle, but instantaneously. The impression of these evanescent visions is what we make desperate attempts to catch and fix by any means at hand. At such moments I am unconscious of materials, of style, of rules, of everything that intervenes between my perception and the object or idea perceived. No, mes amis, impressionism is not charlantry, nor a formula, nor a school. I should say rather it is the bold resolve to throw all those things overboard.
In other words, Sorolla says that the label “impressionism” is simply about capturing light and nature. Our human attempts to formularize it removes from the realm of “seeking” into the realm of “knowing”...and once we “know” it, we no longer “seek” it. So Sorolla threw away pre-conceived knowing in order to attempt to seek. Picasso threw away everything, both seeking and knowing, so that all we are left with is....him? (Indeed! Picasso said, "My mother said to me, 'If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.' Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso." Need anything more be said?)
Picasso's Guernica is intended to highlight the tragedy of the bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War in 1937. It points to his emotional response to a terrible event and is one of his more interesting later works. Still, I would argue that we spend more time interpreting (Picasso's) imagery than actually feeling the pain.
Picasso's Guernica
In contrast, let's look one more time at Sorolla....I can't resist one more nod to his brilliance!!
Sorolla, Doctor's Laboratory
I am viewing the painting in Sorolla's home studio.
The doctor is seeking! His colleagues are seeking! In the photo above, I am standing behind everyone, seeking along with them. Who is standing behind me? You are! And who is standing behind all of us? Sorolla himself, back in the shadows, long brush in hand, but firmly out of the way, and seeking, with those expressive strokes with light as his guide, so that we might seek and see and experience with him!
