Hunter Museum Exhibit on Glackens and Renoir, and then some
I highly recommend this. The designers have put pieces on similar themes and subjects next to each other for comparison. Glackens was called the "American Renoir" because of similar use of color and brushstrokes and because both were Impressionists.
I don't know how Glackens really felt about being called the American version of another painter. He is quoted as saying, "who better to be compared to" but no artist really wants to be seen as a shadow of something or someone supposedly greater. While I wouldn't mind being compared to some writers, I don't want to be named "the female X" or the "Christian Y" or the "American Z" or "white A." I suspect his remark was either ironic or just for public consumption.
For me, I fall on the side of Renoir. His technique and control just looks more accomplished to me. Surprisingly, he suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and as he aged his hands were fairly disabled and twisted, so his work took on a more, shall we say, "wholistic" quality (not as defined and refined). I think one description was "opaque," which I take to mean a tendency toward stable blocks of color rather than chiaroscuro.
That said, I am not the world's biggest Impressionism fan. By its nature the movement was about "the eye" and painting quickly what was seen. Monet painted an awful lot of waterlilies. Impressionist paintings are beautiful and skillful, but I just think they lack something deeper. I don't feel I can contemplate an Impressionistic painting like I can one from another age, even a modernist or abstract.
I'm reading the excellent God in the Gallery: A Christian Embrace of Modern Art by Daniel Siedell. Highly recommend for anyone trying to integrate the two. Christians have trouble with modern and contemporary art because of its excesses (Serrano), its subject matter, its dismissal of representative art, its elitism, and what we perceive as lack of technique and real talent (thus concluding it's a scam).
Siedell explains that modern art is for public galleries, and indirectly says that part of the "success" of a modern artist is being accepted by a community of other "avant garde" artists and critics and scholars. That community tells, or tries to tell, the rest of us what we should like, and because it's not as accessible, we don't. I am reminded of Czickzentmihalyi's definition of creativity as being grounded in freshness, quality, and acceptance in a domain.
However, Siedell's main theme is that art demands, requires, engenders, CONTEMPLATION. I like that. I found myself contemplating at the Renoir/Glackens exhibit. One must not go into a museum and just look. One must stand, or sit, and contemplate, see, dig below the surface of the painting or work and dig below one's own surface (that is the real key, I think.)
I don't know how Glackens really felt about being called the American version of another painter. He is quoted as saying, "who better to be compared to" but no artist really wants to be seen as a shadow of something or someone supposedly greater. While I wouldn't mind being compared to some writers, I don't want to be named "the female X" or the "Christian Y" or the "American Z" or "white A." I suspect his remark was either ironic or just for public consumption.
For me, I fall on the side of Renoir. His technique and control just looks more accomplished to me. Surprisingly, he suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and as he aged his hands were fairly disabled and twisted, so his work took on a more, shall we say, "wholistic" quality (not as defined and refined). I think one description was "opaque," which I take to mean a tendency toward stable blocks of color rather than chiaroscuro.
That said, I am not the world's biggest Impressionism fan. By its nature the movement was about "the eye" and painting quickly what was seen. Monet painted an awful lot of waterlilies. Impressionist paintings are beautiful and skillful, but I just think they lack something deeper. I don't feel I can contemplate an Impressionistic painting like I can one from another age, even a modernist or abstract.
I'm reading the excellent God in the Gallery: A Christian Embrace of Modern Art by Daniel Siedell. Highly recommend for anyone trying to integrate the two. Christians have trouble with modern and contemporary art because of its excesses (Serrano), its subject matter, its dismissal of representative art, its elitism, and what we perceive as lack of technique and real talent (thus concluding it's a scam).
Siedell explains that modern art is for public galleries, and indirectly says that part of the "success" of a modern artist is being accepted by a community of other "avant garde" artists and critics and scholars. That community tells, or tries to tell, the rest of us what we should like, and because it's not as accessible, we don't. I am reminded of Czickzentmihalyi's definition of creativity as being grounded in freshness, quality, and acceptance in a domain.
However, Siedell's main theme is that art demands, requires, engenders, CONTEMPLATION. I like that. I found myself contemplating at the Renoir/Glackens exhibit. One must not go into a museum and just look. One must stand, or sit, and contemplate, see, dig below the surface of the painting or work and dig below one's own surface (that is the real key, I think.)
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