Demoiselles d’Avignon, by Picasso
I mentioned a book a few posts ago that I wanted to talk about in more depth. David Galenson’s Old Masters and Young Geniuses offers a very useful “map” through the historical survey of the visual arts. Galenson is an economist, not an art historian, but his passion for art runs deep. By being something of an outsider, his approach presents a method that brings more clarity, not less, to the complex story of creativity and artistic temperament.
It might seem far fetched to assume that someone who analyzes the prices of paintings at auction as a function of the age of the artist when the work was created could be on the right track. But that is just back up to a very readable treatise. Stated simply, Galenson has divided modern art into two types of artists—the “Old Masters”, or his better term, Experimentalists, and the “Young Geniuses”, or Conceptualists. The former include Cezanne, Giacometti and Titian, artists who just kept working at their vision, steadily, and whose work gets better over time. They are very aware that there is no “answer” but only approximation of their vision. The latter category, which includes artists like Warhol, Picasso, Duchamp and Stella, are artists who reach their apogee of success when they are young. They are more interested in a breakthrough, a shift in thinking. It is the idea that is their contribution, not the painterly process. Galenson calls the first “aesthetically motivated experimentation” and the second, “conceptual execution.”
Galenson’s prime example of idea-driven art is Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon. According to historian William Rubin, Picasso made more than four hundred studies for the painting, “a quantity of preparatory work…without parallel, for a single picture, in the entire history of art.” It was the idea, not the aesthetic exploration that drove its creation.
For a number of well-defended reasons, Galenson explains why art history has been dominated by the Conceptualists, particularly since Duchamp and Picasso. While both approaches are valid, the Conceptualists get ten times the airplay compared to Experimentalists. And given that most artists I know fall into the second category, this book offers validation for a way of working that is often overlooked or dismissed.
But it isn’t just the molifying aspects of Galenson’s thesis that made this book so readable and worthwhile. Galenson provides what Daniel Pink audaciously (and perhaps just a little tongue in cheek) refers to as a “unified field theory of creativity.” I came away with more respect for my own way of working as well as a kind of reverence for the mystery of the process itself. While not a sappy guy, Galenson approaches creativity with a palpable sense of awe.
Similar sentiments about the book have been expressed by fellow artist Jordan Wolfson:
Okay, that being said – and I’ve got nothing against the Conceptual on face value – it’s the raging glorification of it and the neglect of the Experimental as a symptom of our corporate culture that is the real crux of the problem – when I think of what it is that I find a desire to say it has to do with the essential nature of the Experimentalists’ endeavor. There is something inherent in that murky, plodding along that touches something ultimately more real and more powerful than what a Conceptualist approach can accomplish. There, I’ve said it. But I mean no fight. What I mean is that when we get very close to what is –there is no thinking, there are no concepts. When we slow down and become intimate with the experience of life – we are aware without words, without ideas. While the realm of thought is extremely necessary for all sorts of things, like writing and reading these words, like creating all sorts of things like bridges, buildings, vaccines, whole wheat bread, a nice linen jacket, to mention just a few things – remaining in the realm of thought and not venturing into the wordless experience of being, of silence, of stillness – this cuts us off from the deepest aspects of ourselves, of what it is to be human. A conceptual approach might point to the idea of being, the idea of silence or of stillness, but the resonance of such a work of art, it’s energetic presence, remains in the vibration of thought – we “get” the idea – our minds might get a kick from it, but our hearts remain unmoved. In order for our hearts to be moved a different order of resonance needs to be present – the work of art needs to embody an energetic presence that can only occur when the person creating the piece leaves the realm of thinking and takes the risk involved in allowing something larger and unknown to occur, of taking the risk of allowing oneself to enter something larger and unknown, of allowing the work to move into the unknown – then it is the energy of life itself that enters the making, the alchemy, and when there is enough heat transforms the material into an embodiment of being. Then there is real presence. Then our hearts are moved as well as our minds stirred. It is not the idea of the energy of life entering the equation – it is life-force itself. But this can only happen when one opens to what is not known. And that is why as influential as Duchamp has been to the art of the last half a century, it is Morandi’s still-lifes that touch my soul, that bring tears to my eyes, that remind me of what may be possible as a human being. I look to Titian.
This reminds me of a thought I had today as I just finished reading “Watercolors of Winslow Homer: The Color of Light”: How refreshing it is that he wrote so little about his work! You have to look at it to get meaning from it. You don’t have to read tomes.
I’d add to the thoughts that you’ve mentioned here that conceptual art has tried to gain the intellectual high ground. And it’s largely been successful. It’s so easy to write off criticism of art that is surrounded by verbiage as just not understanding it, not having the intellectual ability to see it for what it is. That’s all the more so when we’re in the middle of it’s ‘raging glorification.’ But I think it’s largely bogus. Verbiage does not make art. More often it distracts from it.
I did a quick search for a Picasso quote on artists having their tongues cut out but could not find it. I wonder if he’d consider himself a conceptual artist. My guess is no. He worked within an artistic tradition and tried to mold it to his time and his own personality. But this wasn’t a conceptual practice. It was a plastic one.
By the same token I wonder what Frank Stella would make of this interpretation. If his importance, and his main goal, was seen in his earliest work then what do we make of his book ‘Working Space’ where he tries to articulate what he was doing in the 80s? What does he think of his own work since then? Is it unimportant to him because he knows that his important work was the conceptual breakthrough of his earliest years?
Of course I haven’t read Galenson’s book and am relying just on your writing on it. But based on what you’ve said it does seem to me his view of both Picasso and Stella is pretty questionable.
About 20 years ago I started noticing that gallery shows all had to include ‘important’ in their press releases. This is another conceptual term, as though art is an intellectual product on a never ending road to perfection. There is ‘important’ art that marks another milestone along the way to perfect art. I don’t really know the source of this but I sometimes wonder if it isn’t some perverse combination of art historians and people who make money from art.
This is not a knock on art historians. I’ve known many who have just as much appreciation for art as any artist. But I do think that some at least have the mistaken notion that all art moves forward linearly, never stepping back, never rethinking, never following wrong paths, just always marching forward, always making some sort of conceptual progress. If I thought that way I’d probably stop making art. It would probably be easier and more creative to just write a computer program to make even more ‘important’ art.
I love this post. The other day I was scribbling notes while sitting at a museum in front of paintings I’d seen many times before, and I’d scratched across the page I DON’T WANT IDEAS IN ART! Of course, I didn’t mean that at face value, but I was in one of those moods where I was desperate to find something outside of myself to move me inside of myself and nothing in front of me was working. In art, as in writing, I want one thing: to feel something. I want pieces that push me into our most common vulnerabilities, the parts of ourselves that we can’t stand or fail to recognize. But it’s interesting to me that Wolfson says that the getting into the gritty experience of life rather than the idea of it is to pursue a space without words. As a writer, I have to disagree there; for me, I try to push as far as my heart will go and articulate what that going feels like. In any case though, I think we’re looking to end up in a similar space, a space that challenges and testifies to what it means to be human.
Ken, Your questions about Galenson’s classifications of Picasso and Stella would be best responded to by going directly to the book. He makes a strong case for his point of view, much better than I can here. It surprised me too, since I have had many thoughts about Picasso over the years, but classifying him with Duchamp and company was not one of them. Galenson is using the term in a broader sense than currently in use, so some definitions are in order.
Your reference to the “myth of progress” in art is one that I have had many discussions about with other artists. I don’t believe there’s much evidence for that in any of the arts. Golden ages come and golden ages go. Where we are at the current juncture is anybody’s guess.
LP, your comment thrilled me. I love that you had that thought, not wanting ideas in art. What a phrase–“I was in one of those moods where I was desperate to find something outside of myself to move me inside of myself.” That’s one I will never forget. Thank you so much for putting it into public view here.