business if we were to rewind a couple
of centuries ago this talk would have
been I’ll be at very boring much simpler
to do I could have just plainly said in
black and white that pointed to someone
specifically and said that this artist
is the best out there this artist
creates the best masterpieces however
since the dawn of one art the
conversation around art and artists has
become very gray before the 1800s every
too much work this way that an artist
was approached by a commissioner and
they were commissioned or paid to paint
a painting that was usually a portrait
of themselves and because of this art in
the 1800’s was or before the 1800 was
quite dull very boring primarily for the
rich and very inaccessible but since the
dawn of one art artists began
experimenting with more abstract forms
they started to use things like
composition style form color to depict
things that were much more subjective
like moods and emotions this is a very
familiar painting it’s called The Scream
by Edward monk and it was painted in
1983 now of this painting monk says the
following he says I was walking along a
road one evening on one side lay the
city and below me was the Ford the Sun
went down the clouds were stained red as
if with blood I felt as though the whole
of nature was screaming it seemed as
though I could hear a scream I painted
that picture painting the clouds like
real blood and the colour screamed so
what does he do here he says I felt as
though the whole of nature was screaming
so how does he do that how does he take
a feeling or an emotion something which
is extremely which is intangible and
chance like that he basically took the
image of the Ford etc took reality
altered it into some
thing which is slightly more abstract
but which monk felt better depict at
that moment in time now as the years
progressed artist felt less and less
obligated to depict things as they
appear and eventually we arrived at
fully abstracted forms ones which do not
even make the slightest of references to
the real word around us artists stopped
painting with the rise in their hands
but with their souls and thus we arrive
at forms like this this is a painting by
Mark Rothko and for a lot of people it
will fall under the category of well I
could probably paint that and in fact in
attempting to understand Rothko and his
work I even tried this is me in the
process
but yeah so Mark Rothko belonged to a
generation of artists who were called
the Abstract Expressionists and although
the movement was short-lived while it
lasted it was groundbreaking tumultuous
passionate romantic powerful here’s some
of their other work you have Jackson
Pollock you have out of gold liebe you
have Barnett Newman Clifford still
Robert Motherwell and Willem de Kooning
and what’s special about these paintings
is they’re not about the image that’s
depicted there are a lot more about the
experience of viewing a painting so what
do I mean so for example for some
paintings there’s this kinetic
experience when you can actually feel
the charged motion of the artists as
they created a masterpiece they would
intentionally reveal things such as
brush strokes or the methods or the
methods used in their creation so that
you can feel that kinetic experience
again back to Paulette for example you
could actually see the way in which the
drips would have followed the movement
of his arms you can kind of imagine the
way in which he danced around the canvas
to create his piece whilst in others
it’s more of a sensory experience back
to Mark Rothko and his glowing squares
the viewer is able to immerse themselves
into the canvas these paintings were
quite large this one is around three by
two and a half meters and because of
this the viewer can litter
step into the painting they can feel as
though they are in a space and they
become sensitive to nothing other than
color now that’s what it basically comes
down to the experience of viewing a
painting and there’s a lot that
constitutes an overall experience but
one thing that I do want to talk about
is the environment in which you view a
painting and two examples that will help
me explain this is the Mona Lisa and the
Royal Academy two personal experiences
so for the first one the Mona Lisa it’s
placed in the Louvre in Paris at the end
of a massive room on a wall all by
herself
protected by bulletproof glass and a
semi-circle rail that’s around five
meters in radius the painting itself is
quite small especially compared to the
Abstract Expressionists and if you’re
tough enough to push yourself past the
crowds he’s likely only last a minute or
so and because of the circumstances I’m
describing I wasn’t really able to
connect with the painting they say that
once you go to see the Mona Lisa for the
first time you are immediately struck by
her beauty but in reality I wasn’t
struck by anything other than maybe a
few elbows to the ribs yeah so despite
da Vinci’s masterfulness
I couldn’t connect compare that with the
Royal Academy which was a lot more calm
and controlled they were having an
exhibition of the Abstract
Expressionists actually it ended quite
recently in January of this year and my
favorite in that exhibition was this
piece right here this is called blue
poles by Mark Rothko and for me this
painting is about the rhythm there’s
this sort of mayhem in the drips in the
background a little bit like a layered
piece of music very chaotic and then
it’s interrupted by a steady beating
drum from the blue vertical lines if we
are to compare these two paintings if we
are to compare the Mona Lisa and blue
poles one is a portrait of a woman that
depict depicted quite realistically and
the other is fully abstracted what cinge
is that I end up preferring the latter I
end up referring this one loopholes and
part of the reason not wholly is because
of the environment in which I viewed
this painting there could be a lot of
other reasons but the environment was a
big factor now I won’t lie despite
falling in love with this piece
the hrothgar’s that I saw that day
despite reading so much about them
despite hearing about people actually
breaking down and crying in front of his
work whilst I could appreciate them I
just didn’t like them and the point in
saying this is that to get the message
across that it’s completely okay for you
to dislike or it for you to not
understand it for you to not get it but
keep this in mind Clement Greenberg who
was a very famous architect he was very
important to the Abstract Expressionists
at the time he said that all profound
art is ugly at first and in fact I was
one of those people who would mock
abstract art especially because of how
well it does in the art market I could
not understand the concept of something
that seems so easily reproducible how
that could have such a high monetary
value that’s kind of how I stumbled upon
Mark Rothko actually I was looking for
something to make fun of but along the
way I learned to change my perspective I
learned to look at art in a different
way and that’s my message to you is to
be open-minded especially to the art
that you don’t understand and who knows
what you might find along the way thank
you very much
[Applause] [Music]