One Example of Innovation

[Newberry]

QUOTE(Newberry @ Apr 22 2008, 12:39 PM) *

"A life-long theme of mine is to learn from the past and innovate into the future, and I hope I communicate that in my art column."

I've always been a little confused about your recurring use of the work "innovate" in regard to your art. Would you mind giving some examples of art techniques or concepts which you've actually introduced as something new? Here's the problem: Any time that I've seen you write about your innovations, you seem to be referring to techniques or concepts that you've used or have begun experimenting with, but, from what I've seen, they're always things that have been used by artists for centuries. Have I been misunderstanding you and what you think are your innovations?

J

Sure, I will give you one example.

In this Rubens he achieved a good degree of realism by his use of detail and tone. But the painting has very little use of color. It is essentially a monochromatic painting.

In this Matisse, he forgoes realism, but isolates color groups to identify the core shadows, reflected, and refracted light. Monet does likewise. Here you can see that Monet makes the shadows and lights of the field opposite color groups. In the light are ocher, yellow, orange, and green, then the opposite, complimentary colors of rust, purple, blue, turquoise in the shadows.

Both Monet and Matisse, you might say, found it necessary to do without realism so that they could easier explore color combinations.

In Pursuit I integrated the realism of the old masters with extreme color contrast of the Impressionists. That combination then becomes an innovation.

[Jonathan]

Thanks for the example.

I usually think of the word "innovation" as meaning the act of introducing something new -- something that others have not done before you. Since there have been many artists who have combined the realism of the old masters with the color of the Impressionists, your doing so is not what I would call an innovation.

Prior to and during the time that you were finishing your art education and beginning your career as an artist, realistic styles combined with Impressionistic colors were very popular. In fact, it was the dominant cultural style at the time. One couldn't go anywhere without seeing paintings, posters, book covers, magazine illustrations and even Atari video game packages created by artists and illustrators like Drew Struzan, Bernie Fuchs, Richard Amsel, Michael Dudash, Boris Vallejo, Syd Mead and hundreds of lesser-known imitators of their styles, all of whom made use of your alleged innovation. And most of the same artists also heavily employed the "innovation" that you now call "transparency," which was an additional distinctive characteristic of the popular style.

So, again, I don't understand how these things are your innovations, unless you have your own personal meaning of the word that is very different from the normal meaning. Perhaps you mean that you independently developed a style or technique that was similar to all of the imagery around you that you hadn't consciously noticed during the many years that it was extremely popular prior to your developing it?

J

Edited April 23, 2008 by Jonathan

[Newberry]

Jonathan,

One big difficulty I have in communicating with you, is that you never seem to understand any point that I describe and give examples for. I think I gave a good and clear example that Rubens worked realistically and monochromatically, and how that was different than the impressionistic colors of Monet and Matisse. And, I think it was pretty easy to see how in Pursuit I merged the realism and the color theory.

Perhaps, we could use that as a starting point? Can you confirm that what I presented was valid?

I did follow up on all the artists you mentioned, all of them are either illustrators and graphic designers. My education and background is exclusively fine art. It is like comparing a symphonic composer with a jazz or hip hop composer; they are different genres. Hopper, Wyeth, Freud and such, are fine artists to invite comparison.

And, please, if you want to contradict me, or even confirm my views, take some time and post fine art images, and show us step by step your points. I am sure everyone here will appreciate the effort. I know I will.

Cheers,

Michael

Edited April 23, 2008 by Newberry

[Jonathan]

Jonathan,

One big difficulty I have in communicating with you, is that you never seem to understand any point that I describe and give examples for.

"Innovation" generally means the act of introducing something new. You seem to be using the word differently than most people. I'm trying to understand your use of the word, which is why I'm asking about it. You gave me an example of combining a realistic style with Impressionistic colors. Other artists have done so before you. Therefore it isn't your innovation. So, what am I not understanding? Are you saying that you didn't know that many others had combined realistic styles with saturated colors of varying hues before you did?

I think I gave a good and clear example that Rubens worked realistically and monochromatically, and how that was different than the impressionistic colors of Monet and Matisse. And, I think it was pretty easy to see how in Pursuit I merged the realism and the color theory.

Perhaps, we could use that as a starting point? Can you confirm that what I presented was valid?

Are you asking me if I agree that you've combined a realistic style with Impressionistic colors? If so, yes. Wasn't it clear in my last post that I recognized that you had done so? What I rejected is that you were the first artist to do so. You probably weren't even the ten-thousand-and-first to do so.

I did follow up on all the artists you mentioned, all of them are either illustrators and graphic designers.

Several of them are both illustrators and fine artists. The fine art that they create doesn't cease to be fine art because they also work as illustrators. Besides, their choice of employment or the genre in which they work is not relevant. Even if they all produced nothing but illustrations, they still created in a style which you are claiming to be your own innovation, and that style was displayed practically everywhere prior to your using it.

My education and background is exclusively fine art. It is like comparing a symphonic composer with a jazz or hip hop composer; they are different genres.

I'd say it's more like a symphonic composer claiming to have innovated a style which was already prevalent among jazz musicians, as well as perhaps among television commercial jingle writers. It wouldn't matter from whom the symphonic composer appropriated or subconsciously absorbed his "innovative" style, and his considering those who used the style long before he did to be professionally beneath him would not make their innovations his own

Look, if you're saying that you had no knowledge of others using a realistic style and Impressionistic colors before you did, I'll take you at your word. But then we have the problem of how extremely limited your exposure to the visual arts must be.

Hopper, Wyeth, Freud and such, are fine artists to invite comparison.

And, please, if you want to contradict me, or even confirm my views, take some time and post fine art images, and show us step by step your points. I am sure everyone here will appreciate the effort. I know I will.

Okay. When I get some time I'll find and post images from the time period in question. I'll also post examples of art created by strictly fine artists.

J

Edited April 24, 2008 by Jonathan

[Newberry]

Thank you for recognizing that I did integrate the realism and color theory in Pursuit.

You wrote:

"I'd say it's more like a symphonic composer claiming to have innovated a style which was already prevalent among jazz musicians, as well as perhaps among television commercial jingle writers. It wouldn't matter from whom the symphonic composer appropriated or subconsciously absorbed his "innovative" style..."

It is good you say that because then I understand your position. But I view this differently, an innovation in illustration, or comic design doesn't automatically become an innovation in fine art until a fine artist incorporates it. Of course, you don't have to agree with my view, it's your prerogative.

But, Jonathan I really don't want to engage with you about all the things you think I am doing, saying, and writing that are wrong. My deepest felt attitude is that if you don't agree, then create your own work, your own aesthetic, your own world view and be happy with it; and leave me to mine. I only speak for myself and I hope you will honor that.

Michael

[Jonathan]

It is good you say that because then I understand your position. But I view this differently, an innovation in illustration, or comic design doesn't automatically become an innovation in fine art until a fine artist incorporates it. Of course, you don't have to agree with my view, it's your prerogative.

Funny. By your reasoning, a symphonic composer could rip off the well-established style of jazz or rap artists, or a new, catchy mixture of styles of music in, say, a popular Hallmark greeting card commercial, and he could claim to have "innovated" it because he thinks his art is a finer or higher form. It's interesting that he wouldn't have to originate the style in order for it to count as his innovation, but would only have to "incorporate" it into his superior genre. I have to wonder if there's much of a difference between your notion of "innovation" and postmodernist artists' notion of "appropriation" or "sampling."

Anyway, as I said above -- which you ignored -- most of the illustrators that I listed are also fine artists who used the style in question in their fine art, but apparently the fact that they also worked as illustrators means that even their fine art styles don't quite count, and purer, finer artists can later use similar styles and claim them as their innovations.

I think I now have a good idea of your notion of "innovation."

But, Jonathan I really don't want to engage with you about all the things you think I am doing, saying, and writing that are wrong. My deepest felt attitude is that if you don't agree, then create your own work, your own aesthetic, your own world view and be happy with it; and leave me to mine. I only speak for myself and I hope you will honor that.

Oh, I already know that that's your deepest felt attitude about what I should do. Your deepest felt attitude about what you should do, on the other hand, has been to be very concerned about all of the things that other artists are doing, saying, and writing that you think are wrong.

Btw, congratulations on completing your Venus. She's beautiful.

J

Edited April 24, 2008 by Jonathan

[Wolf DeVoon]

Adding a chainsaw would be an innovation.

Vanity is a stormy ocean. It hammers men into rubble and sweeps them out to sea,

drowning all who were once sturdy and heroic. -- Mars Shall Thunder

To hell with your 'color innovation.' It's an insult and a fraud. You're a photorealist.

Yes, I'm angry about this.

Edited April 24, 2008 by Wolf DeVoon

[Newberry]

To hell with your 'color innovation.' It's an insult and a fraud. You're a photorealist.

Dear Wolf,

Hello. I believe this is our first interaction. If you are interested in truth, I don't qualify as a photo realist. In my 20s after my postmodern education, I tried working with photos and found them to be hopeless; they simply didn't come close to the feeling of seeing the thing live. I work gazillion of hours live with models directly on the canvas, or through pencil and pastel studies. Somehow on the search engines about my site there is a blurb about photo realism, I have no idea where that came from.

Cheers,

Michael

[Newberry]

Here are the illustrators/artists that Jonathan mentions. Essentially they are working monochromatically, as in the Rubens, with lots browns and blacks as there basis for shadowing. I could not discern in any significant degree of color theory in the majority of them.

This one is very odd, the shadows on the faces and the immediate hill behind them is warm/hot color, but the shadow of the white sweater and the distant mountain is cool or cold blue, that is a good example of a visual contradiction.

This is a good and very simple example of warm light bulb, blue/black for everything else. But very simple.

I enjoyed the color of the highlights here, but the shadowing is done with brown and black, as in the Rubens.

Overall I was very disappointed with these images as developing anything with color/light theory.

BTW, my next review for TNI (I think it will be the July issue) is of a plein air painter, William Wray. He started out as a commercial artist and has struggled to become a fine artist, one of my favorite painters.

Cheers,

Michael

[Jonathan]

Here are the illustrators/artists that Jonathan mentions. Essentially they are working monochromatically, as in the Rubens, with lots browns and blacks as there basis for shadowing. I could not discern in any significant degree of color theory in the majority of them.

Here are some better examples created by some of the artists that I listed:

They're not the specific images that I originally had in mind, but they're good representations of the styles that I was thinking of. Some of them are quite similar to your use of color variation and saturation, some are a little more subtle, others are a little more abrupt or intense.

After I image-searched by artists' names, I also searched by time period. Still no luck with finding the specific images from 30 years ago, but I found a hell of a lot of older illustrations which were quite chromatic. I had forgotten that J. C. Leyendecker's work from the early 20th century was occasionally very colorful, as seen below at left. The three other images below are from travel and cigarette ads that appeared in Esquire in the mid to late fifties.

While viewing a lot of commercial art from the past, I began to suspect that artists might intentionally avoid the type of color usage that we're talking about because they don't want their fine art to come anywhere near looking like magazine ads, sci-fi book covers or blacklight fantasy posters.

This one is very odd, the shadows on the faces and the immediate hill behind them is warm/hot color, but the shadow of the white sweater and the distant mountain is cool or cold blue, that is a good example of a visual contradiction.

I think that would be called artistic license. It's funny that the color usage in that image nags at you, but the size discrepancies in the image directly above it go without comment ("Sean Connery and John Rhys-Davies aren't that much smaller than Harrison Ford! Gosh, what a terrible visual contradiction!").

J

[Jonathan]

To hell with your 'color innovation.' It's an insult and a fraud. You're a photorealist.

Dear Wolf,

Hello. I believe this is our first interaction. If you are interested in truth, I don't qualify as a photo realist. In my 20s after my postmodern education, I tried working with photos and found them to be hopeless; they simply didn't come close to the feeling of seeing the thing live. I work gazillion of hours live with models directly on the canvas, or through pencil and pastel studies. Somehow on the search engines about my site there is a blurb about photo realism, I have no idea where that came from.

Cheers,

Michael

Michael,

I had seen your work referred to in the past as "photorealism," which I thought was odd because I don't think of you as a photorealist. So I Googled "Michael Newberry" and the first hit listed was your own site with a line which reads "Photorealism in oils and drawings with artist's commentaries and regular studio updates." It's weird because the same line doesn't show up when I enter your site. Even when cached, "photorealism" is absent.

J

[Wolf DeVoon]

I don't qualify as a photo realist... I work gazillion of hours live with models directly on the canvas, or through pencil and pastel studies.

Don't use photos, huh? Care to retract or rephrase that?

Edited April 25, 2008 by Wolf DeVoon

[Newberry]

I don't qualify as a photo realist... I work gazillion of hours live with models directly on the canvas, or through pencil and pastel studies.

Don't use photos, huh? Care to retract or rephrase that?

Hey Wolf,

It's really simple.

That self portrait was painted directly, live from a mirror. I worked on it for about six months for a few hours every evening. I am right handed, and that caused a big problem, because the outstretched hand is my right one, (the image you see is of course reversed because of the mirror image.) I would put my brush down, study the shapes and color either of the big form or a detail, then pick up the brush and paint.

No photos were involved.

[Newberry]

Yes, Jonathan,

I came across photorealism blurb as well. I think it came from the time when volunteers helped with search engines, and I am not savvy enough on the internet to find a way to rid that.

Michael

Edited April 25, 2008 by Newberry

[Newberry]

Here are the illustrators/artists that Jonathan mentions. Essentially they are working monochromatically, as in the Rubens, with lots browns and blacks as there basis for shadowing. I could not discern in any significant degree of color theory in the majority of them.

Here are some better examples created by some of the artists that I listed:

They're not the specific images that I originally had in mind, but they're good representations of the styles that I was thinking of. Some of them are quite similar to your use of color variation and saturation, some are a little more subtle, others are a little more abrupt or intense.

After I image-searched by artists' names, I also searched by time period. Still no luck with finding the specific images from 30 years ago, but I found a hell of a lot of older illustrations which were quite chromatic. I had forgotten that J. C. Leyendecker's work from the early 20th century was occasionally very colorful, as seen below at left. The three other images below are from travel and cigarette ads that appeared in Esquire in the mid to late fifties.

While viewing a lot of commercial art from the past, I began to suspect that artists might intentionally avoid the type of color usage that we're talking about because they don't want their fine art to come anywhere near looking like magazine ads, sci-fi book covers or blacklight fantasy posters.

This one is very odd, the shadows on the faces and the immediate hill behind them is warm/hot color, but the shadow of the white sweater and the distant mountain is cool or cold blue, that is a good example of a visual contradiction.

I think that would be called artistic license. It's funny that the color usage in that image nags at you, but the size discrepancies in the image directly above it go without comment ("Sean Connery and John Rhys-Davies aren't that much smaller than Harrison Ford! Gosh, what a terrible visual contradiction!").

J

Those later examples from the 50's are great. Thanks for taking the time to find them. They do show the French Impressionist color theory with realism in the genre of illustration.

I wonder...the skill level is really high, at that time period the shift toward postmodernism was so overwhelming, I wonder how many of them would have carved out a fine art career if it had been otherwise. We'll never know.

Edited April 25, 2008 by Newberry

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Yes, Jonathan,

I came across photo-realism blurb as well. I think it came from the time when volunteers helped with search engines, and I am not savvy enough on the Internet to find a way to rid that.

Michael

Michael,

It sounds like a simple html thing. You probably have this text in the description metatag. Such text does not appear on the page that gets displayed, but does on search engine and directory blurbs about the site.

I looked at the browser view of the first page source for each of your three sites and the description metatag was not present. I am not savvy enough to know where it got put just from looking at browser displayed html, but it is obviously on another page on the server side. If your site was made with php, the description metatag would be on what is called an includes page.

If you find someone who knows some elementary coding (and it really is not at all complicated—hell, even I am making an intelligent guess and I am just beginning my studies), what I just stated should get him thinking in the right direction (even if it is not php) and he can probably fix you right up in a couple of minutes.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Wolf to Michael Newberry:

[....] You're a photorealist.

Wolf, I'm thinking that you aren't familiar with the look of "photorealism." (I'd never describe Michael's work as "photorealist.")

Here, for comparison, is a link to a webpage by photorealist painter Dru Blair:

http://www.drublair.com/comersus/store/tica.asp

The page might take awhile to load. Sorry, I didn't see how to post just the finished image.

Ellen

___

[James Shay]

Here are the illustrators/artists that Jonathan mentions. Essentially they are working monochromatically, as in the Rubens, with lots browns and blacks as there basis for shadowing. I could not discern in any significant degree of color theory in the majority of them.

Here are some better examples created by some of the artists that I listed:

They're not the specific images that I originally had in mind, but they're good representations of the styles that I was thinking of. Some of them are quite similar to your use of color variation and saturation, some are a little more subtle, others are a little more abrupt or intense.

After I image-searched by artists' names, I also searched by time period. Still no luck with finding the specific images from 30 years ago, but I found a hell of a lot of older illustrations which were quite chromatic. I had forgotten that J. C. Leyendecker's work from the early 20th century was occasionally very colorful, as seen below at left. The three other images below are from travel and cigarette ads that appeared in Esquire in the mid to late fifties.

While viewing a lot of commercial art from the past, I began to suspect that artists might intentionally avoid the type of color usage that we're talking about because they don't want their fine art to come anywhere near looking like magazine ads, sci-fi book covers or blacklight fantasy posters.

This one is very odd, the shadows on the faces and the immediate hill behind them is warm/hot color, but the shadow of the white sweater and the distant mountain is cool or cold blue, that is a good example of a visual contradiction.

I think that would be called artistic license. It's funny that the color usage in that image nags at you, but the size discrepancies in the image directly above it go without comment ("Sean Connery and John Rhys-Davies aren't that much smaller than Harrison Ford! Gosh, what a terrible visual contradiction!").

J

Those later examples from the 50's are great. Thanks for taking the time to find them. They do show the French Impressionist color theory with realism in the genre of illustration.

I wonder...the skill level is really high, at that time period the shift toward postmodernism was so overwhelming, I wonder how many of them would have carved out a fine art career if it had been otherwise. We'll never know.

Michael,

My understanding is that postmodernism in painting, sculpture and architecture arose in the 70's, after their philosophic underpinnings were constructed in the 60's. You've written about pomo on your website, and here you say that the shift toward it was "overwhelming" in the period of the illustrations put up by Jonathan, which is apparently the 50's. So, you must know something I don't. Are you talking about early undercurrents? If so, what were they?

The illustrations make apparent a problem I have with your Venus. To me, she looks too much like a modern and transient vision of female beauty located very much within the last 2 decades or so, in the same way that the illustrations you remarked on look like the 50's. Venus' body is similar in shape, proportion, and muscle tone to those portrayed in contemporary fitness and skin magazines. This may not bother many others, who may not see her the same way I do, or may not care whether or not she's so apparently from a specific time, but it does me. When the great sculptor Frederick Hart's frieze in the National Cathedral was unveiled, as magnificent as it is, it was criticized for the over-perfection of the human figures, which are based in contemporary notions of beauty. They seem to be out of modern, fashionable magazines. I feel the same way about Venus. Unfortunately, Hart's wonderful art wasn't weird, angsty, or tortured enough for the blinkered art critics of the time to think of as extraordinary fine art, regardless of the figures.

Venus is a mixed bag to me. She's a fine achievement in figure painting, but I don't share the same strong admiration expressed by others on OL.

I think the power of putting her chest in the compositional center of the work, and the right breast and nipple almost dead center, detracts from the rest of her, because it is so unsubtle. There's more to eroticism than breasts. Although they aren't Playboy magazine-size, they seem too important here. She's a bit too "pin-up" for me. Perhaps that's why the comment about the illustrator Frank Frazetta, who paints "Shena of the Jungle" women with very obvious, pneumatic breasts, was made. You're a much finer artist than him.

The tones, shadows and torque of the upper half of Venus are masterful, but not the bottom half of her figure below the ribs. Her upper body seems to have skin made of flesh and blood, while the lower part seems covered in a body stocking. The gorgeous tones on her chest and arms are much better than the awkward looking abdominal shadowing. Her hands, arms and chest are spectacular.

If she's meant to convey ecstatic surrender or something else in the same vein she doesn't quite hit it for me. Her head and body seem to be focused too strongly in opposing directions. She looks overposed, and thus unalluring. But, clearly from others' responses, it's a personal thing. In your article on michaelnewberry.com, Pandora's Box #3, you illustrate a figure composed around an "S" curve. That seems what you're doing here, but it's too overdone. Venus' wide-eyed look to the side doesn't heighten her eroticism. An erotic Venus needs erotic eyes. I don't think they need to be looking at the viewer - they can closed, or downcast - but they don't work for me here. As the cliche goes, they really are the most erotic parts of our body.

Back to postmodernism. At least as far as standard art history goes, isn't the 50's the decade of pop art and the shift away from abstract expressionism? I remember an interview with Robert Rauschenberg in which he said that the pop artists were, in part, poking fun at the serious pretentions of the abstract expressionists. Wit and irony are componants of postmodernism, so perhaps the 50's artists such as Rauschenberg and Johns, by your definition were postmodernists? I don't see it.

Jim Shay

[Newberry]

Gosh Jim!

Ah...that was quite a post.

First, I enjoyed very much that you took the time to really look at and comment on the online image of Venus.

Second, I am in the process of writing a presentation about her, which would address a few of your observations and queries. Of course, some of the things I present may not be to your liking, but you may never like the painting anyway. So I beg off addresses issues here in a post, and you can read the presentation when it is complete. (...oh...I can't resist one little thing...some women have commented that her stomach is the most beautiful they have ever seen... Goes to show, that people can have quite different responses.

About the postmodern time line and influence. Duchamp from the 1920's to the Postmodernists of the 70's bracketed the modernists abstract painters' momentum towards a reductionism that exhausted how far the modernist movement could reduce painting, it ended by leaving painting out of the picture:). All of the excitement and moral certainty was with the modern and postmodern avant guarde. By negative reflection we can see how few fine art representational painters emerged between 1920 through to the late 70's. Though, we see the rise of Disney...my guess is that many would be fine artists, simple said "to hell with fine art if it means making silly installations and white canaves."

On a different note, one might sympathize with the tremendous effort against the odds when Rand wrote Atlas. It was not in a environment friendly to epic integrated works--architecture may have many exceptions to this, but I am no expert in architecture or its history.

Michael

Edited April 26, 2008 by Newberry

[Jonathan]

Those later examples from the 50's are great. Thanks for taking the time to find them. They do show the French Impressionist color theory with realism in the genre of illustration.

As do the other examples that I posted. Some of them may use the colors to a slightly greater or lesser degree than you do, but they're still using them.

I wonder...the skill level is really high, at that time period the shift toward postmodernism was so overwhelming, I wonder how many of them would have carved out a fine art career if it had been otherwise. We'll never know.

I don't doubt that trends in the artworld have affected the career choices of many artists, but I've also read enough about great illustrators to know that many of them loved illustration and were never very interested in fine arts careers. Some saw illustration or design as being fully legitimate artistically, and I would agree them. I think that the imaginary worlds depicted by illustrator/designer Syd Mead or by illustrator John Berkey, for example, have had significant aesthetic impact on the world. The fact that they weren't primarily "fine artists" really seems to have no relevance. They painted their unique visions of future or alternate worlds and inspired millions of people, including other artists, architects, cinematographers and writers.

J