Capturing Romance

The Birthday (1915)

Marc Chagall

MOMA

As an artist I have been ruminating on how to go about capturing a moment of romance. In Chagall's The Birthday (pictured above) we see an ever-present aspect of it depicted in art: 

Fantasy, as it is depicted in Chagall's painting, is that distinctive faculty we have for imagining things - the product of which one recognizes in a painting, musical composition, or some other sensory-stimulating work of the imagination that involves our dwelling either consciously or subconsciously on the moment. 

In Chagall's painting, two lovers are caught in the moment of a surprise kiss. She, moving flowers, perhaps that he delivered, into a vase; he, whipping around to steal a kiss. She is surprised, but her eyes are wide open, brining in the moment in a very personal way. Both are swept off their feet as furniture and objets de art fall upward, in the general direction of the sentiment displayed: 

a heart that has been touched soars...

Throughout history, fantasy has taken on different meanings, with themes as different as the ages that cultivated them. In ancient civilizations, fantasy was that superfantastical realm of dragons and spirits in the east ...

A Copic History of Art

c. 3800 BCE (China) Pig-dragon Pendant Hongshan Culture; Neolithic

...and demons in the west. 

The Falling Angel (1923-47)

Marc Chagall

(This piece combines Biblical and Torah lore with the modern world and with Chagall's personal symbolism in a juxtaposition of images that attempt to summarize the many experiences the artist had over the course of his work on the painting)

During the Middle Ages, the prevailing fashion for fantasy was for grotesque distortions of human and animal forms. These figures filled the margins of illustrated manuscripts, while their carved equivalents adorned the façades of churches and public buildings. 

Sermonizing artists provoked their public with terrifying visions of purgatory. The most imaginative artist in this field was Hieronymus Bosch. 

The Garden of Earthly Delights (c. 1450-1516)

Hieronymus Bosch

The Prado

Fantastical images can be expressed utilizing the twisting, flowing, dream-like movements found in Chagall's whimsical paintings or in the hollowed-out eggshell bodies, demons with tree-like limbs, and man-eating birds with long, spiky beaks (Bosch) - or with entirely different imagery. 

Guiseppe Arcimboldo

The Louvre

Fortunately, fantasy has not always been linked with terror. Renaissance artist Guiseppe Arcimboldo brought us novelty pictures in which the human head was composed out of an assemblage of fruit, flowers, or vegetables.

Our love of fantasy expresses our fascination with fables and fairies, folklore and myths. Our creation of these artworks or musical scores represents our desire to immerse ourselves in the production of these moments. 

To first experience an aspect of it in our own mind and then, afterwards, to produce that image, allows us to whisk others away with visually stunning fantasies we draw upon from our own personal flights of fancy. At the same time, these images are idealistic and romantic. 

Love combines the physical combining of separate forces in their moment of ecstasy. Chagall's The Birthday is based on the artist's exploration of dreams and the human psyche that in turn produces an artifact from this experience. 

Expressing love in art comes from the desire to creatively produce that which is free from the restraints of reason. In pursuing this aim, painters adopt a variety of personal styles. Some produce images that resemble hallucinations or dreams in which figures or objects are depicted in a startlingly realistic manner, juxtaposed in a way that defies rational analysis; others produce semi-abstract works by deliberating suppressing themselves in their automatic drawings. 

Joan Miró is a leading example of this approach. 

Ballet Romantic (1974)

Joan Miró

However one imagines a romantic artwork, the artwork itself must surprise the painter as well as the viewer; if not, it will fail to resemble the workings of the subconscious mind at play.

I have not yet created this piece, but the expression of this highly sought after human sentiment is indeed weaving its way through my subconscious as I diligently work through creating the next 15 or so paintings for this upcoming exhibition. 

Creating this many pieces of art (in such a short period of time) requires one to draw heavily upon the subconscious in search for these sentiments ... where they are found is between the artist and his or her canvas ... where they end up depends upon to whom these productions speak most. 

Comics Reflect How Society Feels

Sun, Moon, Sky, Earth (2012)

Sophy Laughing

During the periods corresponding to the aftermath of any great difficulty or upheaval, such as our recent 2008 stock market crash, an air of liberation eventually sweeps over society affecting art, culture, economics, politics, and spirituality. 

This phenomenon marks a notable and lingering psychological reaction to having overcome significant challenges, and happens time and time again throughout history. 

Art that follows periods of intense stress results in a fitting pause, a chance to take things in and make sense of them; in what one could regard as a separation between thinking 'too much' and allowing oneself to simply 'be' with oneself, this artistic expression lies somewhere between logic and wonderment. 

Despite resistance to analytic logic and rationality, which are themes often distorted in artistic works, the free flowing separation between 'whatever our minds want to forget' and 'that which we have yet to conceive of in our new mode of existence' is what identifies this art, or in other words, makes this type of art special. 

AUTOMATIC PAINTING

1991, oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches.

This same experience can be achieved when artists allow for automatic painting. Similar to automatic writing, allowing oneself to create whatever images emerges from one's own hand, in place of a preferred technique or style, results in a new type of random composition of artwork that instantly expresses the immediate psychological responses of the artist living within a specific era. 

Promenade (1918)

Marc Chagall

Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

René Clair, a French filmmaker, described a similar period of time and the joie de vivre that accompanied the post-revolutionary change in Europe that marked the decade from 1914 until 1924:

      In 1914 the nineteenth century really ended, and by 1918 the main outlines of our age had been drawn: Communism ruled in Russia, American's industrial supremacy had been established and the old Victorian structure of the world had crumbled to dust. 

     In the years following 1918, the liveliest minds were obsessed by the idea of revolution. Revolutionary in art, revolutionary in literature, never before had a generation blasted with such fierce recklessness of the work of its predecessors, separated from it by four years of war - the war that marked the end of an era. 

     At a time when existing theatre and literature appeared a worm-eaten edifice - the debris of which was being cleared away by the Dadaist dustmen, and the world 'revolution' the key to all problems of art, cinema stood out for me as the freshest of all media of expression, the one least tainted by the past, in a world, the most revolutionary.

James Birch's Babylon Babies

The postcards were a source of inspiration to many artists in the 1920s and 30s, in particular to both the Dadaists and the Surrealists, whom they influenced. They were collected by Paul Eluard, Andre Breton, Salvador Dali, Hannah Hoch, Herbert Bayer, and Man Ray. 

Little is known of their history. The postcards were produced from around 1900-1920 and were found from Russia, to Spain to England and most countries in between, however the majority appear to be from Germany. 

The best reference for these babies is in a book called: Babylon: Surreal Babies by James Birch, 

who came across these "bizarre and delightful images" when he was an art student in Aix-en-Provence. 

The rebellious impulses that follow tragedy are magnified in its opposite reaction, a renewal in the higher feelings associated with happiness and contentment, which are then reflected in the art created and purchased. A person that closely follows psychological trends to external events might even consider our present time as an opportunity to ride a long tail. 

Today, our revolution is a technical one; one that may someday liberate human beings from the biological impediments that have long since marked our thoughts, theories, and artistic productions. After every advancement follows a liberating expression of self, which is notably evident in the artwork we produce and the trends that follow.