intention vs the happy accident -- making art

There’s a theory that in making a painting the thousands of momentary decisions about where to put the brush for each stroke unconsciously encodes a statement of character and attitude, regardless of subject matter, that can somehow be read back by some component of our mind. It would seem the tremendous appeal of a Van Gogh painting, for example, isn’t in the sunflowers, but instead in something about the way they’re painted. It’s very hard to explain, actually can’t be explained, because explanations are in words and words won’t touch what Van Gogh was doing, but we can see it.

Art sometimes takes up a cause, say a socially relevant, consciousness lifting expose’ appropriate to the times, but times pass and citizens lobby to replace old art with new as social priorities change. We’re not talking about that. Whether artwork supports the revolution, legitimizes the establishment, or sells a stick of butter, it’s the potency of the image that grabs the attention. Visual art goes mind to mind, no filter, and its appeal is more felt than intellectualized, just like other art forms.

It’s pretty much a fact that other art forms don’t do accidents. There’s improv but it isn’t random, just spontaneous, and remaining in control is its charm. Clark Terry might ‘triple-tongue‘ up and down in one solo, but that’s polar opposite of accidental, and he just expects you to know that. It’s difficult to conceive of anything analogous in any other form to the ‘happy accident’ smearing, staining, dripping school of making art, but that’s what was happening for a while. Here’s what’s happened since. Without the sustaining motive of communication, art has become a vehicle for the supersonic cutting edge of fashion, frivolous and time-bound. I understand it, just don’t care for it, big Japanese gallery full of jagged chunks of something I wouldn’t go next door to see-- not much for runway couture either. I ain’t alone.

I saw a Picasso rooster at the Cincinnati Art Museum and the brushstrokes that made up the feathers on the neck were intricate and even, even though the rooster was considerably less, or more, than photographic. I’m not always a fan, don’t always agree, but always interested to see what he was saying, since no matter what Picasso did, no one ever doubted the intention imbedded in his art. So here’s my point. Jackson Pollock was on to something, in theory, thinking of artistic expression as a form of automatism, the artist’s unconscious projection of meaning, but his shortcut through the bottle didn't connect.

The ‘truth’ he sought requires the mastery of technique, the acquisition of voice, and it isn’t easy. Musicians practice, dancers leap, actors sit in front of mirrors, each seeking the control to express themselves honestly and totally. That’s what makes their art compelling and they know it. When it comes to painting the same rules apply, really. Another line on the resume won’t move the total stranger like a dedicated attempt to portray early evening in the park, a park similar to one the viewer may have walked in long ago -- a nod back and forth deeper than clouds and trees.