Jonathan Jones art blog published in The Guardian had a nice slant on Tate Britain's Painting Now art exhibition
"It is the title of an exhibition Tate Britain has just announced for this autumn. Painting Now will feature Gillian Carnegie, Tomma Abts,Simon Ling, Catherine Story and Lucy McKenzie. The oldest of these five painters was born in 1967, the youngest in 1977 – if nothing else, it is welcome proof that the passion to paint lives on in the 21st century. So what's my gripe?
I dispute the idea that painting can ever belong to "now". The title Painting Now makes it sound so current and fast, as if these artists do their work between tweeting a brilliant remark on the Egypt situation and heading to the airport for a gig in Berlin. Which perhaps they do. But it's a doubtful proposition that any good painting has ever been made with an eye exclusively on the present.
This does not mean painting cannot be modern. It has produced much of the most powerful modernist art, from Jackson Pollock to Cy Twombly. But none of the great modern painters was an artist of "now".
If they were, Jackson Pollock's Lavender Mist would today look like a period piece, illuminating the quirks of 1950s America but quite odd and silly from our point of view. The reason it does not look like that, but is, on the contrary, utterly alive and relevant, is that Pollock had his eyes fixed on somewhere beyond "now": he knew enough about the history of art before him to grasp the scale of newness and daring needed to make paintings that were truly revolutionary.
People have been painting since the stone age, and the conscious, written history of painting goes back to ancient Greece. When a painter faces a blank canvas, that weight of tradition is daunting – you are doing the same thing Caravaggio and Rembrandt did. What can you add that is truly new?
This challenge of history makes modern painting irresistibly exciting. When a painter really breaks through to a new and powerful style, work that adds to what painting can be, it is a profound achievement.
You can only do that by taking your art utterly seriously and on its own terms, which are ancient terms. So this is my problem with Painting Now. No good painter has ever painted just for "now". The reason there are so few painters of real originality in today's Britain is that our art scene is so focused on ideas of contemporaneity and youth. Painting demands a more open-minded idea of what matters in art and what makes it relevant – for example, the exclusion of older artists from this survey of current British painting makes no sense. A 90-year-old painter has just as much chance of being original as a 20-year-old. More, actually.
When you paint, you enter a different time stream. All previous painters are at your shoulder. You need to ignore the art magazines and curators who demand an art of "now". You need to ask Cy what he thinks". Nice one Jonathan.
Jonathan Jones art blog published in The Guardian had a nice slant on Tate Britain's Painting Now art exhibition
"It is the title of an exhibition Tate Britain has just announced for this autumn. Painting Now will feature Gillian Carnegie, Tomma Abts,Simon Ling, Catherine Story and Lucy McKenzie. The oldest of these five painters was born in 1967, the youngest in 1977 – if nothing else, it is welcome proof that the passion to paint lives on in the 21st century. So what's my gripe?
I dispute the idea that painting can ever belong to "now". The title Painting Now makes it sound so current and fast, as if these artists do their work between tweeting a brilliant remark on the Egypt situation and heading to the airport for a gig in Berlin. Which perhaps they do. But it's a doubtful proposition that any good painting has ever been made with an eye exclusively on the present.
This does not mean painting cannot be modern. It has produced much of the most powerful modernist art, from Jackson Pollock to Cy Twombly. But none of the great modern painters was an artist of "now".
If they were, Jackson Pollock's Lavender Mist would today look like a period piece, illuminating the quirks of 1950s America but quite odd and silly from our point of view. The reason it does not look like that, but is, on the contrary, utterly alive and relevant, is that Pollock had his eyes fixed on somewhere beyond "now": he knew enough about the history of art before him to grasp the scale of newness and daring needed to make paintings that were truly revolutionary.
People have been painting since the stone age, and the conscious, written history of painting goes back to ancient Greece. When a painter faces a blank canvas, that weight of tradition is daunting – you are doing the same thing Caravaggio and Rembrandt did. What can you add that is truly new?
This challenge of history makes modern painting irresistibly exciting. When a painter really breaks through to a new and powerful style, work that adds to what painting can be, it is a profound achievement.
You can only do that by taking your art utterly seriously and on its own terms, which are ancient terms. So this is my problem with Painting Now. No good painter has ever painted just for "now". The reason there are so few painters of real originality in today's Britain is that our art scene is so focused on ideas of contemporaneity and youth. Painting demands a more open-minded idea of what matters in art and what makes it relevant – for example, the exclusion of older artists from this survey of current British painting makes no sense. A 90-year-old painter has just as much chance of being original as a 20-year-old. More, actually.
When you paint, you enter a different time stream. All previous painters are at your shoulder. You need to ignore the art magazines and curators who demand an art of "now". You need to ask Cy what he thinks". Nice one Jonathan
Image: Cy Twombly - Photo: Gagosian Gallery.
