Artists' Subject Matter
When I was a child, big book shelves stood in my
room. My father put many books on the shelves. Some books discuss Western
art and history. I read the books, but I was not interested in them. I just did
not like the paintings. In 1998 I visited some museums in Chicago. In 1999 I
visited some museums in Paris. During these two trips, I started to love Western
paintings. I realized that it is important to see the originals because the
combination of visual elements such as size, scale, color, and texture, play a
very important role for art works to deliver their message. The duplicated
copies in books actually are different forms from the originals. Since then,
when I traveled, I always looked forward to visiting museums. Recently, I
became more curious about the Artists' subject matter.
In February, 2005, I went to
The Modern Art Museum and
Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, which is a city to the west of Dallas.
Usually, the area around Dallas is called DFW (Dallas/Fort Worth). As usual, I
walked into these museums and skipped the description of the art work and felt
the art work directly. I took this approach partly because I wanted to experience
the pure feeling of the art itself, and partly because I wanted to know whether
the art works delivered the message successfully. This was also a way for me to
find the most valuable art work to me. In fact, I would only read the
descriptions of the art works which impressed me very much. After all, I wanted
to know about the art because it gave me some new points of view.
One thing different at this time was that I was more
curious about the background of the art works, such as where the artists came
from or whether some special events happened in their lives. The background
information influences their subject matter. For example,
Red Grooms moved from his
urban home town to New York City; therefore, it is possible the big transition
influenced his compositions related to the city life. Furthermore, one might ask
why he expressed the city life through a hilarious Pop Art. I guess he must have
a happy personality and also love the city very much.
The artists deliver the messages according to their subject matter. To deliver their
message through their art works, artists use many different expressive forms.
Obviously, the subject matter influences the forms of the art works. Moreover, different
artists have their own subject matter and then derive different forms even it is about
the same objects, such as horses.
Horses are a subject that many artists like to address.
For example, "The horse was a vehicle for me." "I think it was a surrogate for
dealing with human being, but at the same time it was neutral enough and I have
no emotional relationship to horses, so it really was a powerful object",
Susan
Rothenberg once said. During this trip, horses are subjects in Red Grooms',
Susan Rothenberg's and George Stubbs' art works. It is easy to notice that these
art works demonstrate horses with different subject matter.
The horses in Red Grooms' Ruckus Rodeo are
humorous and personified characters. The eyes of one of the horses
are feminine and the eyelashes are long. The posture of the other horse is very
childish. This bucking horse and the angle of its front legs seem like a groovy kid who fights with cowboys and
makes one cowboy fly out and throws the other into the audience.
The horse in Susan Rothenberg's art works, although
implicitly expressing a human beings as well, has less detail and is not humorous
at all. According to the book, Susan Rothenberg by Joam Simon, Rothenberg
wondered what it would be like to do "a human being in the horse position" in
1974. In the following years, Susan Rothenberg painted a series of horses to
experiment with a number of ideas. For example, she took pictures of her friend
Mary Woronov and then painted from memory a canvas of pictures. It was very
funny when I read: Rothenberg once said “Finally I have to stop it, I didn't do
any more figures – that is human figures – in a horse position"(P.29~36). In
Cabin Fever, painted in 1976, she tested few “What if?" What if it was
divided in half? What if adding shadows that implied a second horse? What if the
color of the subject is close to the background? It would be a great experiment
of finding out the answers thorough putting this particular piece and her
related pieces together.
George Stubbs is an artist much earlier than
Grooms and Rothenberg. Stubbs' ideas came from the study of the anatomy of
horses; therefore, his paintings are more realistic, and the muscles of the
horses are usually depicted in detail. The abundance of lucrative commissions
from horses results in patrons' influences on his paintings. However, he
considered his works first as a contribution to art. In Horse and Lion, a
painting about power and fear, the subject matter is definitely not talking about
science.
Can people understand the art piece if they do
not know the artist's subject matter of the art piece? Maybe they can, maybe not.
For example, when I saw Susan Rothenberg's Cabin Fever in the Modern Museum, the
line in the middle of the piece was hard to ignore. Taking a close observation,
I concluded that she drew the line on purpose. However, what does that mean? I
wondered that she tried to give the feeling that the horse falls to the depth of
the cave, or maybe she just tried to imply the difference of the two parts of
the horse, or very simply, she is a schizophrenia patient. After I read some
materials, I realized she was doing some experimenting.
On the other hand, I treasure the feelings
when I appreciate the art before I know the background. I know that I would
respond to the art from my own nature and maybe it would stimulate some new
thoughts combined with my own experience. Furthermore, it is a good chance to
assess one's ability of observation and perception. If people know the subject
matter
after they experience the art piece, they can realize how sensitive they are.
Also, I personally believe that this ability is a skill that can be trained. To
know your ability is the first step.
Sometimes artists even themselves do not
know what their art is for. Sometimes the feelings just come out naturally. For
example, in the past six months, I have done about seven paintings or drawings. I did
this because…, well, I do not know. Maybe I tried to find out the "secret" deep
inside my soul. Actually, I did not know what I would find out in the beginning.
For another example, why did I put opinions and stories from my art journal in a
web site format? Maybe I think it was cool. Maybe I was afraid that I would forget
the experience in the adventures in the US; therefore, I need to record it. OK,
even if I know what I was doing clearly, if I did not write down my intentions,
would people understand my art? In fact, artists' subject matter is lost easily just
like this.
Many people may wonder, “Do I need to know artists' subject matter? It is just
entertainment for me." In sum, artists express their subject matter through their art in
most cases. Red Grooms considered the horse as his actor in Ruckus Rodeo;
Rothenberg used the horse as a neutral object for human implications; Stubbs
admired the beauty of horses. Is it silly that people try to appreciate art
pieces without knowing the reason for the creativity? In my opinion, it is very
helpful to understand art work if people know the background of the art, no
matter what it is. Furthermore, it sometimes is more fun if
people know artists' subject matter.
Copyright © 2005 by Joseph CJ Lee
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