Week 2: Willem de Kooning

I randomly flipped through my little art history book and landed on Willem de Kooning, a Dutch-American artist. I do not like de Kooning. It has been a struggle to write this post, because I do not like his paintings. Many seem aggressive and confrontational, which is perhaps the point: to push the viewer out of their comfort zone and to actually make them squirm. While I can appreciate and even respect this intention, I don't enjoy it. Posters of de Kooning's work will never hang on my walls. Here's a quote from de Kooning's Wikipedia entry

"Aggressive brushwork and strategically placed high-key colors in these paintings merged with images of toothy snarls, overripe, pendulous breasts, enlarged eyes and blasted extremities to reveal a woman seemingly congruent with some of modern man's most widely held sexual fears."

I was actually unable to find a work of his that I liked even a little bit. I hope to be proven wrong someday by chancing upon an intriguing de Kooning somewhere. 

That's the beautiful thing about art; it's still art even if one person hates it. Even if lots of people hate it. There are philosophical arguments about intention and motive, as in is it still "art" if the artist has no control over the subject matter? Is it still "art" if the artist (or art critics) say otherwise? Is it still "art" if it's sold for millions of dollars by a living artist (cough-Damien Hirst-cough)? My somewhat rambling point is that art doesn't have to be liked or even respected. It just is, so deal with it. 

Who should I pick for next week? Should I do two to make for my wimping out with de Kooning? 

So, there's been a "game" going around Facebook where you post a picture of art and anyone who likes that image gets assigned an artist by the original poster to post and repeat. I was having far too much fun, so I've decided to expand, thus sparing all of my Facebook friends who really don't care. Poor things. I flipped through an art history book my friend Karli gave me and chose an artist at random. I'm going to try to do this every week. We'll see how it goes. Feel free to suggest an artist in the comments.

Week 1: The Adoration of the Magi by Domenikos Theotokopoulis (El Greco)

{image from Wikipedia}

El Greco is not one of my favorite artists. The Mannerist school of art to which he is usually assigned tends to unnerve me with its trademark elongated limbs. And in El Greco's case, the emotions he portrays are so intense: sometimes his paintings are difficult to view. This might seem odd coming from me, since one of my favorite artists is Edvard Munch, but I believe that difficulty has to do with El Greco's strong religious motifs more than anything else. Since he spent the majority of his career in strongly Catholic Spain and was raised Greek Orthodox, this is not surprising. There is some debate among historians as to whether or not he ever truly converted to Catholicism or remained Orthodox. There's always debate among historians.

I do love and admire his use of color. He was obviously very talented, but many of his paintings are not for me. I like this one because of his use of color to imply light emanating from Jesus. The background isn't detailed, just swirls of gray and black, giving the impression of turmoil and great changes happening.