Research point – Townscapes

· Gerhard Richter born 1932 in Germany.

The artist worked through the academic, figurative art to abstract. Early works were expressive research of viewpoint, form and composition. Over painted photos, so to say, were transformations of identical copy into the art piece.

Gerhard Richter involved new technologies in the art-making process for “reinventing” his own style. On the first picture, I would imagine that the artist represented the city from the satellite view, the second picture was a photo first and then “thoughts” over it.

Gerhard Richter, Townscape M4, 1968 85 cm x 90 cm, Oil on canvas [Online] Available from: https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/art/paintings/photo-paintings/townscapes-24/townscape-m4-5279/?p=6 [Accessed 24/02/19]

Gerhard Richter: Florence: RICHTER, Gerhard, ELGER, Dietmar [Online] Available from: https://www.abebooks.de/erstausgabe/Gerhard-Richter-Florence-ELGER-Dietmar-Hatje/20520759190/bd#&gid=1&pid=4 [Accessed 25/03/19]

· Trevor Grimshaw British artist born 1947.

“He developed a unique style working in oils, charcoal and graphite to produce atmospheric, stylised images of the Northern industrial landscape, mainly in monochrome. ” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Grimshaw [Accessed 25/03/19]

Trevor Grimshaw, Northern Townscape, 1974 Lithograph on paper, 324 x 422 mm [Online] Available from: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/grimshaw-northern-townscape-p01412 [Accessed 24/02/19]

Monochrome works with a theatrical decoration where the roles of actors are for buildings. Most of the time industrial and dark cities without people, melancholic… Perhaps the combination of different materials supports an atmosphere in works and helps to represent the perspective.

· Stuart Davis American abstract artist born 1894.

Stuart Davis (1892–1964), Swing Landscape, 1938. Oil on canvas, 86 3/4 x 173 1/8 in. (220.3 x 400 cm). Indiana University Art Museum; allocated by the U.S. Government, commissioned through the New Deal Art Projects. © Estate of Stuart Davis/Licensed by VAGA, New York [Online] Available from: https://www.whitney.org/WatchAndListen/1362 [Accessed 25/03/19]

“Davis is credited with developing an American variation of European Cubism at a time when modernism was just beginning to infiltrate the country” (Theartstory, Online)

Before Pollack and pure abstraction, Stuart Davis built his rhythm inspired by jazz and swing.

“Open, direct” colours in cooperation with geometrical forms reminds me of graphic design of our days. The artist integrates negative space as support for colour stain’s composition. But still, we can identify particular elements of the Townscape – house, tower, field, elements of factory… It is a different view of the previous artist. Rationality, structure, progressiveness, aggressiveness is associating with this work.

· Jeffrey Smart Australian Artist born 1921.

© Estate of Jeffrey Smart, 1973, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, Truck and trailer approaching a city, 90.0 x 164.5 x 8.8 cm frame [Online] Available from: https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/1.1980/ [Accessed 28/03/19]

Jeffrey Smart, Cahill Expressway (1962), oil on plywood, 81.9 × 111.3 cm [Online] Available from: https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/3000/ [Accessed 28/03/19]

Jeffrey Smart chooses for his artistic approach big stains of colour and humour. These are two ideas which are in each of his work developed around the city subject.

A composition is always very symmetrical and logical. For his time (but what was his time? he died in 2013. (26 July 1921 – 20 June 2013)) extremely academic representation but modern approach to it. Not in technique but in a subject. I like the “simple” way of telling a story. People are plying their role and additionally emphasising the mood of the day. But some could say that this art full of cretinism of society.

· Pavel Pepperstein b. 1966, Moscow

Pavel Pepperstein. Suprematist freeway in Sri Lanka in 2115. 2009. Watercolor on paper. © Pavel Pepperstein, 2015 [Online] Available from: http://mamm-mdf.ru/exhibitions/pp/ [Accessed 24/02/19]

I don’t know if Pavel Pepperstein is taking any drugs (it is commonly believed that it helps to be more open and creative), but his work just on the pick of the imagination. First of all, his series about urban landscape and architecture full of the artworks which used as buildings! This idea itself already brings a viewer on another lever of appreciation, as I can see it. Second, to go beyond the current day and try to be in 100 years later just fascinates me. Basically, soon we can live this 100 years but today it is beyond human life and you or me (who are reading this post in 2019) will never see the art and planet in the 2115 year. This makes me think about my own art in a way of - beyond modernity. Our course materials teach us about past methods and ideas, current depiction but never about future… interesting, why?

· Friedensreich Hundertwasser Austrian artist born 1928.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser, 896 Silver Smoke Steamer in Yellow Sea ,1987 © 2018 Namida AG, Glarus, Schweiz [Online] Available from: https://www.kunsthauswien.com/en/exhibitions/ [Accessed 24/02/19]

St. Mandé/Seine, 1950, Watercolour on grey paper, 615 mm x 430 mm. Painted in St. Mandé/Seine, spring 1950 [Online] Available from: http://hundertwasser.com/de/oeuvre/68-malerei/772-baume-in-grau [Accessed 24/02/19]

Colour, a transformation of the form... Sometimes overloaded pictures with action but very well balanced with composition and key object. He is very unique for me in his technique. Now when I live next to one of the buildings he designed I understand his not standard approach to the art. Probably transformation of the colour through expressionists, his view on nature and the absence of the academic education brought him to “the positive art”. I was thinking why some artist happy to work only with monochrome black and white materials and some opposite? Isn’t it is a way a person sees this existence? Some are comfortable with a limited pallet and some need to have all colours on it.

· Erol Akyavaş born 1932 in Turkey.

Erol Akyavaş, from the castles series [Online] Available from: https://www.wikiart.org/en/erol-akyavas/kaleler-dizisinden [Accessed 29/03/19]

“…studied architecture and art in Europe and America and placed his interest in Eastern arts, and particularly Islamic art,… In these paintings where perspective in the classical sense disappears, each image that is included in the painting is also ascribed a question, and the image is constructed through a Sufi sense of love, Akyavaş creates a world which he embraces with faith.” (Istanbul modern [Online] Available from: https://www.istanbulmodern.org/en/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/erol-akyavas-retrospective_1170.html [Accessed 29/03/19])

While researching the “landscape” subject I noticed works of Akyavaş. I liked that national tradition came across in all his works. Methods of calligraphy and modern techniques are mixed in an intricate story.

Erol Akyavaş, The Glory of the Kings, ca. 1959, Oil on canvas, 121.8 × 214 cm, The Museum of Modern Art [Online] Available from: https://postwar.hausderkunst.de/en/artworks-artists/artworks/the-glory-of-the-kings-die-herrlichkeit-der-koenige [Accessed 29/03/19]

Erol Akyavaş, Siege x, 1982, mixed technique on canvas, 266 x 385 cm., (Nezih Barut collection). [Online] Available from: http://www.antikalar.com/turk-resminin-modernlesme-surecinin-donusumu-erol-akyavas [Accessed 29/03/19]

· Marina WitteMann

In 2019 technology more and more are coming in daily life. Art is not an exception. Digital world provides easier solutions for our life, controls us and allows seeing the world from a different perspective.

Similar to the line in calligraphy – line in the digital world can be beautiful and alive. In contrast, this line is not really existing (no physical substance), but what really exists…?

As an Erol Akyavaş, WitteMann very close to her national identity. That’s why the motives of the church and rural landscape can be often seen in her art. At the same time method of monotype is a heritage which artist transforms into the new modern language. Gerhard Richter applied colour on the photo surface as a step to pure abstraction, perhaps her art is a bridge between a minimalistic understandings of the art – it is only the paint on the canvas and digital art without physical existence.

Bibliography and references

1. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Richter [Accessed 25/03/19]

2. Theartstory, https://www.theartstory.org/artist-davis-stuart-artworks.htm#pnt_5 [Accessed 25/03/19]

3. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Smart [Accessed 28/03/19]