> The very crude outline for Irwin is narrative with two point perspective to
> flat surface with square shapes, follows an arc of narrative-logic, to
> psychological-logic to perceptual-logic, then conceptual-logic. Irwin uses
> Piet Mondrian as an example. This is a good example because Mondrian started
> off in late impressionism and transformed his art into abstractions that
> continued to evolve along the arc that Irwin describes. Here is a link to a
> blog on Mondrian. It is pretty good but it doesn't explicitly cover
> Mondrian's tree series and its evolution into abstraction:
There was an exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales earlier in the year called 'Paths to Abstraction', which made the same point. It used a different sequence of Mondrians but with the same, well, narrative:
1900 Irrigation ditch with mature window 1906/07 Open landscape, train along horizon 1907 Summer night 1912 Trees 1913 Composition no XI 1914 Tableau no 1 / Composition no 1 / Compositie 7
There was a Picasso from 1899 that looked a little like a Rothko - 'Balcony with curtain'. I can't find it on the web, but its a picture of sunlight through a curtain.
Some of the earliest stuff in the exhibition was by Whistler - 1865-67: 'Symphony in white, no III' - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Whistler_James_Symphony_in_White_No_3_1866.jpg
...and 'narrative' paintings of city landscapes in the dark, which were supposedly scandalous - like 1873's 'Nocturne in grey and silver, the Thames'.
Speaking of artists' own explanations of their work, there's an interesting essay in the catalogue by Jean-Claude Lebensztejn, 'Passage: note on the ideology of early abstraction'. He shows how much spiritualism and idealism was around in Mondrian's, Kandinsky's et al's conceptions of what they were doing, and compares it with the later 20th century abstraction and modernist critics. Like this quote from Frank Stella: "I have no difficulty appreciating (and up to a point, understanding) the great abstract painting of modernism's past, the painting of Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian, but I do have trouble with their dicta, their pleadings, their impassioned defense of abstraction. My feeling is that these readings, these theoretical underpinnings of Theosophy and antimaterialism, have done abstract painting a disservice which has contributed to its present-day plight."
Mike Beggs
