Michelle Marder Kamhi's "Who Says That's Art?"

[Jonathan]

As for mastering anatomy, form, and space, this is assuredly difficult. It looks to my eyes that you have struggled to approach mastery yourself at times earlier in your art-making career.

You're being much too kind. Newberry's technical struggles aren't limited to times earlier in his career, but continue to this day. It's really too bad that he never got beyond his Objectivist stage of needing to believe in a Roarkian fantasy version of himself. At this point in his career, he could really benefit from a more realistic appraisal of the limits of his own skills, and a recognition of all that he needs to work on. Actually, such a realistic appraisal would have been beneficial ten or fifteen years ago. It's probably too late for him now to transition into such a mature mindset.

I was struck by a number of technical errors in several of your paintings and drawings (from the Newberry Art site).

For example, you have given a couple of online backgrounders and analyses in tutorials featuring your 1990 canvas "Counterpose" -- which you write is one of your most satisfying paintings.

Here is a reproduction:

And here is the image rotated 180 degrees:

Michael, do you see the same defects as I do? I see hip dysplasia and several other apparently broken bones. I'd say your modeling of the human form/anatomy is significantly off (how did your model manage to put her knee into her crotch without de-socketing? How did her buttocks move around from the back of her body to the side without major injury? How can she put a knee in her own crotch without snapping the bones in her leg?).

I think you will find these questions important to the greater goal of accurately modeling anatomy, form and space. We can all learn from mistakes ...

His errors in anatomical proportions are indeed quite evident, as are his difficulties with flesh tone coloration. He's a mediocre to good artist who is missing enough technical fundamentals as to never be great as long as he continues to believe his Objectivish fantasy vision of himself.

J

[Brant Gaede]

I've read Frank O'Connor wouldn't tolerate artistic suggestions from Ayn Rand no matter how minor. I think however you evaluate what he did with his paintings or how good of an artist he was, he had a true Roarkian attitude toward them. No one has to read The Fountainhead for that. In that sense only, Roark and Frank Lloyd Wright were the same. As for Roark, the creative architectural genius, he actually had more the psychology and attitude of an engineer. Not Wright. What Roark had going for him character wise was integrity and perseverance.

The last book Nathaniel Branden was going to write was about integrity. He asked for suggestions on reading for research on it. I emailed him "The Fountainhead"--an ironic suggestion as he had read it constantly in his adolescence. It wasn't until he broke with Rand he truly did the Roarkian thing with psychology, not that he didn't do well with his Objectivism entrepreneurship the previous decade, even though he really was working on the wrong railroad.

--Brant

[Jonathan]

I've read Frank O'Connor wouldn't tolerate artistic suggestions from Ayn Rand no matter how minor.

I've heard the same thing. I don't know that it's true, given all of the dishonest myth-building tactics that Rand's heirs and advocates have indulged in, but if it is true, good for him. My guess would be that he realized very early on that Rand was the type of intrusive, controlling personality who would need to be told in no uncertain terms to back the fuck off when it came to offering unsolicited art advice. I can't see Frank having the same attitude toward others, though. I see him as the type who would welcome feedback from people other than Rand.

I think however you evaluate what he did with his paintings or how good of an artist he was, he had a true Roarkian attitude toward them. No one has to read The Fountainhead for that. In that sense only, Roark and Frank Lloyd Wright were the same.

I don't think that's true. There were times when Wright was quite accommodating of clients demands for changes, and even complete revisions. He even altered his design of Taliesin over a non-aesthetic, non-engineering matter in order to impress a wealthy, powerful, potential client. He was often privately a serious ass-kisser while publicly nurturing the persona of an uncompromising artiste.

As for Roark, the creative architectural genius, he actually had more the psychology and attitude of an engineer. Not Wright. What Roark had going for him character wise was integrity and perseverance.

I don't think that Wright could have done what he did without having the attitude of an engineer. He re envisioned structures based on knowing what would hold, where others were actually afraid of his buildings.

The last book Nathaniel Branden was going to write was about integrity. He asked for suggestions on reading for research on it. I emailed him "The Fountainhead"--an ironic suggestion as he had read it constantly in his adolescence. It wasn't until he broke with Rand he truly did the Roarkian thing with psychology, not that he didn't do well with his Objectivism entrepreneurship the previous decade, even though he really was working on the wrong railroad.

The thing about Roark was that he was a fictional character who was created to know that he was great while actually being great in the story's reality. He didn't have a fantasy appraisal of his own abilities. He wasn't going around with his nose in the air, posing, primping, preening and praising himself at every opportunity while actually lacking in fundamental skills.

J

[Brant Gaede]

I've read Frank O'Connor wouldn't tolerate artistic suggestions from Ayn Rand no matter how minor.

I've heard the same thing. I don't know that it's true, given all of the dishonest myth-building tactics that Rand's heirs and advocates have indulged in, but if it is true, good for him. My guess would be that he realized very early on that Rand was the type of intrusive, controlling personality who would need to be told in no uncertain terms to back the fuck off when it came to offering unsolicited art advice. I can't see Frank having the same attitude toward others, though. I see him as the type who would welcome feedback from people other than Rand.

I think however you evaluate what he did with his paintings or how good of an artist he was, he had a true Roarkian attitude toward them. No one has to read The Fountainhead for that. In that sense only, Roark and Frank Lloyd Wright were the same.

I don't think that's true. There were times when Wright was quite accommodating of clients demands for changes, and even complete revisions. He even altered his design of Taliesin over a non-aesthetic, non-engineering matter in order to impress a wealthy, powerful, potential client. He was often privately a serious ass-kisser while publicly nurturing the persona of an uncompromising artiste.

As for Roark, the creative architectural genius, he actually had more the psychology and attitude of an engineer. Not Wright. What Roark had going for him character wise was integrity and perseverance.

I don't think that Wright could have done what he did without having the attitude of an engineer. He re envisioned structures based on knowing what would hold, where others were actually afraid of his buildings.

The last book Nathaniel Branden was going to write was about integrity. He asked for suggestions on reading for research on it. I emailed him "The Fountainhead"--an ironic suggestion as he had read it constantly in his adolescence. It wasn't until he broke with Rand he truly did the Roarkian thing with psychology, not that he didn't do well with his Objectivism entrepreneurship the previous decade, even though he really was working on the wrong railroad.

The thing about Roark was that he was a fictional character who was created to know that he was great while actually being great in the story's reality. He didn't have a fantasy appraisal of his own abilities. He wasn't going around with his nose in the air, posing, primping, preening and praising himself at every opportunity while actually lacking in fundamental skills.

J

If this last is a takeoff on Nathaniel Branden, I consider it mostly wrong and much incomplete and which Branden: pre or post 1968? In any case, beside the basic point of work focus and orientation, Nathaniel was very complicated and Roark quite simple, which was his wont as a fictional, made up character. I do admit that in spite of my very varried and not slight history with him going back to the 1960s and all the reading I have done about him/by him, I have never been able to get my head completely around who he was. It is not a subject I especially care to get deeper into in any public way. It would be neither helpful nor illuminating of anything important not tentative. His having a basically poor understanding of science, for example, is a triviality.

Regarding Wright and Roark, my focus is on creativity as the primary and it wasn't in Roark except for the author's assumptions. Here too Wright was very complicated vs Roark not.

I understand Wright not being successful without being accommodating. Roark was the opposite--and successful--because Rand made him so. In real life he would have been unsuccessful as an architect but he could have gotten away with his anti-socialism as a painter. You need a lot of money to build something your way as an architect and if it's not your money you sell your services. Howard Hughes came to Hollywood with a boatload of money and could do things his way. There are tremendously talented movie makers in Hollywood who can't get financing and have full control through to the final product*. As a painter, get your stuff and go to work. If it doesn't sell you can work around that without being one for hire.

--Brant

*this is rapidly changing for the better because of the boatload of new technologies

no Peter Keating designed Fallingwater, but I've never found out if that extra structural steel put in against his specifications was necessary

[Jonathan]

If this last is a takeoff on Nathaniel Branden..

No. Sorry for the miscommunication. I wasn't referring to Branden at all, but was continuing with the contrast of Roark and Newberry's fantasy vision of his skill levels.

J

[Brant Gaede]

If this last is a takeoff on Nathaniel Branden..

No. Sorry for the miscommunication. I wasn't referring to Branden at all, but was continuing with the contrast of Roark and Newberry's fantasy vision of his skill levels.

J

I think Newberry would greatly improve if he dropped the ideological and broke his work down into its basic components and improved on each. Then it would be a matter of subject and composition. He'll never drop the ideological, so I'm afraid he's stuck for there's too much invested there. When I decided to do that I was 29 back in 1973 and had to work on it for years. There was also some psychological crisis and transformation. In some sense I'm still working on it.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Just sayin'...

I like Michael Newberry's work.

He has something I greatly value that not all artists do: a unique voice. It's pretty easy to look at an unfamiliar work of his, not be told he did it, and realize he did it.

Right now I don't want to get involved with the ideology and attitude stuff, though. Nor technique, for that matter.

I'm glad Michael paints. I hope he keeps doing it until the end of his life. I feel some really great work by him is coming.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

I like some of it and some of it I really don't like.

--Brant

[Newberry]

I like Michael Newberry's work.

He has something I greatly value that not all artists do: a unique voice. It's pretty easy to look at an unfamiliar work of his, not be told he did it, and realize he did it.

I'm glad Michael paints. I hope he keeps doing it until the end of his life. I feel some really great work by him is coming.

Michael

That's awesome. Thanks.

[anthony]

After viewing his other works, I think Newberry is very good to excellent, with only one I'm not keen on, the duo leaping seems naive and artificial to me, though if I imagine it in a contextual situation, against an ocean, for instance, I'd like it better, for some odd, styling reason. (Sorry, nothing worse than second-guessing an artwork). Despite the device of William's, of flipping the nude painting to visually 'eliminate' the effect of gravity on her body, which makes it look unnatural, I believe it to be anatomically correct (as well as a tense and moodily expressive nude portrait.) A woman's waist, buttock and hip area is constantly fascinating to me and I'm sure to other men. There is quite incredible flare, flexibility and mobility here that a man doesn't match, as in a woman described as having "hip akimbo". Perspective, which MN handles superbly, might give the impression of her knee in her groin, but that's mainly the eye tricked by receding perspective. I shot some nudes at one period and I think this painting is accurate, anatomically, to the general range of movement and pose women are capable of, so, realistic, allowing for the artist's visual licence.

[moralist]

Tony writes:

I shot some nudes at one period...

Did they live?

Greg

[anthony]

Huh, when I shoot 'em they stay shot, Greg.

35 caliber I was using.

[Brant Gaede]

Huh, when I shoot 'em they stay shot, Greg.

35 caliber I was using.

Don't tell us more!

[Jonathan]

Despite the device of William's, of flipping the nude painting to visually 'eliminate' the effect of gravity on her body, which makes it look unnatural, I believe it to be anatomically correct (as well as a tense and moodily expressive nude portrait.)

The idea here isn't to have subjective "beliefs" about whether or not the anatomy is correct or proportional while never having studied anatomical rendering and while having no knowledge of how to measure the anatomical proportions of a foreshortened form.

Perspective, which MN handles superbly.

No, he doesn't. Lack of knowledge and skill at perspective is one of his biggest weaknesses. He doesn't seem to realize that perspective applies to all visual representations of three-dimensional spaces and objects, not just to ones which have straight lines, flat planes and other obvious indicators of depth. He gets lost when dealing with human forms, and messes up their perspective. His Lovers Jumping contains very, very bad perspective errors. To put it in photographic terms, it would be like someone compositing two figures from two different photo shoots where the figure closest to the viewer was shot with a 50mm lens from 12 feet away, and the distant figure was shot with a 30mm lens from 4 feet away. Plot out the image for yourself using reverse projection perspective, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

J

[Selene]

Tony writes:

I shot some nudes at one period...

Did they live?

Greg

Don't worry, he used a silencer.

[Jonathan]

I like some of it and some of it I really don't like.

--Brant

I like some of his work too. I also like a lot of the art that Newberry feels the uncontrollable need to publicly piss on despite its being technically as good or better than his. It's a strange double standard that people feel compelled to comfort and protect Newberry from the exact same type of direct criticism that he just dropped on another member here.

Anyway, the issue here isn't whether or not any of us "like" works of art. This is an Objectivist forum, and "likes" are supposed to have nothing to do with valid aesthetic judgments of art. The point, therefore, is to discuss the objectively measurable technical merits, or lack thereof, of the art under consideration. Newberry's work does not warrant the pompous "mentor" pose that he takes.

J

[moralist]

Jonathan writes:

"likes" are supposed to have nothing to do with valid aesthetic judgments of art.

Each person's individual subjective perceptions of beauty or ugliness are driven by their moral values. So if a person has rotten moral values they will subjectively perceive beauty where others subjectively perceive ugliness. Now those subjective perceptions will either agree or disagree with objective reality depending on each person's morality.

In my subjective opinion, it is impossible to make a valid amoral aesthetic judgment, as art serves the greater purpose of morality.

Greg

[anthony]

Despite the device of William's, of flipping the nude painting to visually 'eliminate' the effect of gravity on her body, which makes it look unnatural, I believe it to be anatomically correct (as well as a tense and moodily expressive nude portrait.)

The idea here isn't to have subjective "beliefs" about whether or not the anatomy is correct or proportional while never having studied anatomical rendering and while having no knowledge of how to measure the anatomical proportions of a foreshortened form.

Perspective, which MN handles superbly.

No, he doesn't. Lack of knowledge and skill at perspective is one of his biggest weaknesses. He doesn't seem to realize that perspective applies to all visual representations of three-dimensional spaces and objects, not just to ones which have straight lines, flat planes and other obvious indicators of depth. He gets lost when dealing with human forms, and messes up their perspective. His Lovers Jumping contains very, very bad perspective errors. To put it in photographic terms, it would be like someone compositing two figures from two different photo shoots where the figure closest to the viewer was shot with a 50mm lens from 12 feet away, and the distant figure was shot with a 30mm lens from 4 feet away. Plot out the image for yourself using reverse projection perspective, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

J

Perspective (or the appearance of perspective, to be exact) is dependent on the distance from the viewer's eye (or the painter or photographer) to the subject, which means that there's no ONE 'perfect' depiction of perspective. (As long as it remains consistent throughout, and I might agree that his leaping couple is a little off). The closer, the more exaggerated; the further away, the more foreshortened.

With Michael's 'Artemis' and other nudes, as well as that great 'Sculptor', I see nothing but a masterful use of proportion and perspective. The human body has to be the hardest to paint perspectively 'correct' - straight lines and planes easy by comparison.

To show the contrast, the male nude, 'Artemis' shows a more fore-shortened perspective, as if viewed from a distance -- while the female nude, 'Counterpoise', has a much greater receding perspective, more 'depth', with its emphasis on her head, chest and hand, to her relatively small extremities. So, indicating a very close viewpoint of the artist(which makes the onlooker feel more intimately involved. "Pulled in", as it were).

After all that, it's not draughtsman-like reproductions of reality that matters most. The artist might even defy the rules, change whatever he wants in the scene, for his particular purpose - to place importance on one aspect.

[Brant Gaede]

Jonathan writes:

"likes" are supposed to have nothing to do with valid aesthetic judgments of art.

Each person's individual subjective perceptions of beauty or ugliness are driven by their moral values. So if a person has rotten moral values they will subjectively perceive beauty where others subjectively perceive ugliness. Now those subjective perceptions will either agree or disagree with objective reality depending on each person's morality.

In my subjective opinion, it is impossible to make a valid amoral aesthetic judgment, as art serves the greater purpose of morality.

Greg

For a non-esthetician.

--Brant

which you are to the point of not understanding the discipline at all--that is one can certainly make a positive objective esthetic judgment a work of art while holding one's nose; for me that would be Natural Born Killers, a work of visual genius the moral attributes of which I despise and certainly not any movie I'd want a child to see

[Brant Gaede]

I like some of it and some of it I really don't like.

--Brant

I like some of his work too. I also like a lot of the art that Newberry feels the uncontrollable need to publicly piss on despite its being technically as good or better than his. It's a strange double standard that people feel compelled to comfort and protect Newberry from the exact same type of direct criticism that he just dropped on another member here.

Anyway, the issue here isn't whether or not any of us "like" works of art. This is an Objectivist forum, and "likes" are supposed to have nothing to do with valid aesthetic judgments of art. The point, therefore, is to discuss the objectively measurable technical merits, or lack thereof, of the art under consideration. Newberry's work does not warrant the pompous "mentor" pose that he takes.

J

Must be #1150 of three days ago.

--Brant

[moralist]

Brant writes:For a non-esthetician.

Assessment devoid of morality is the dream of every secular leftist.

which you are to the point of not understanding the discipline at all

Understanding moral discipline is all that matters......because everything else in life that's good flows from it. Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Brant writes:

For a non-esthetician.

Assessment devoid of morality is the dream of every secular leftist.

which you are to the point of not understanding the discipline at all

Understanding moral discipline is all that matters...

...because everything else in life that's good flows from it.

Greg

It's not devoid of morality if it's done in a moral and ethical way. Moral judgments in esthetics are a subset of esthetic judgments. A continually moralizing esthetician about esthetics is not actually an esthetician but only a moralizer, which is the religious equivalent of a philosophical dogmatist.

--Brant

[moralist]

Brant writes:

It's not devoid of morality if it's done in a moral and ethical way.

Well Brant, that's where each of our two subjective views are divergent. In my view, there is no such thing as an amoral judgment done in a moral and ethical way. And in your view, there is.

That's the Holy Grail of secular leftists... amoral "morality".

Greg

[Newberry]

Perspective (or the appearance of perspective, to be exact) is dependent on the distance from the viewer's eye (or the painter or photographer) to the subject, which means that there's no ONE 'perfect' depiction of perspective. (As long as it remains consistent throughout, and I might agree that his leaping couple is a little off). The closer, the more exaggerated; the further away, the more foreshortened.

The human body has to be the hardest to paint perspectively 'correct' - straight lines and planes easy by comparison.

After all that, it's not draughtsman-like reproductions of reality that matters most. The artist might even defy the rules, change whatever he wants in the scene, for his particular purpose - to place importance on one aspect.

Tony, I think your understanding of perspective is spot on.

The concept of visually making things bigger as they come forward and smaller as they go back, works well, and allows the artist a lot of freedom to create. Trying to be absolutely perfect can easily backfire if one is off by a millimeter. Rather if an object is coming forward and the artist errs on making it too big, that still feels right to me, even if there is some distortion. At least that is the way I taught to students, and I do myself.

[Brant Gaede]

Brant writes:

It's not devoid of morality if it's done in a moral and ethical way.

Well Brant, that's where each of our two subjective views are divergent. In my view, there is no such thing as an amoral judgment done in a moral and ethical way. And in your view, there is.

That's the Holy Grail of secular leftists... amoral "morality".

Greg

I can only conclude you have no idea about what I mean by "esthetic judgments" apart from a moral evaluation of a finished product. They would include use of various techniques from perspective to choice of paint, use of contrast, size of canvas, detail, etc. I'm not even an esthetician, but this is so simple it's hard to comprehend your lack of comprehension. It might be you're only considering the end result.

--Brant