{"id":123,"date":"2014-04-05T14:18:36","date_gmt":"2014-04-05T18:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=123"},"modified":"2023-10-11T21:40:44","modified_gmt":"2023-10-12T01:40:44","slug":"art-spirit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2014\/04\/art-spirit\/","title":{"rendered":"Catching “The Art Spirit”"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The Art Spirit” is a loose collection of thoughts, lecture notes and criticisms by the artist and teacher Robert Henri\u00a0 (1865-1929).\u00a0 My studio friend J. P. Sullivan<\/a> gave me a copy of this book, which is one of his favorites (and now mine).\u00a0 It is inspirational and educational, not so much about specific technique but more the mindset of an artist.\u00a0 Again, rather than review the book, I cite some of my favorite passages.\u00a0 It was hard to select just these few.<\/p>\n

__________________________________<\/p>\n

\u2022 He paints like a man going over the top of a hill, singing.<\/p>\n

\u2022 For an artist to be interesting to us he must have been interesting to himself.<\/p>\n

\u2022 I once met a man who told me that I always had an exaggerated idea of things.\u00a0 He said, “Look at me, I am never excited.”\u00a0 I looked at him and he was not exciting.\u00a0 For once I did not over-appreciate.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The picture that bowls you over at first sight and the next day loses even the power to attract your attention is one that always looks the same.\u00a0 It has a moment of life but dies immediately thereafter.<\/p>\n

\u2022 [Brush] strokes carry a message whether you will it or not.\u00a0 The stroke is just like the artist at the time he makes it.\u00a0 All the certainties, all the uncertainties, all the bigness of his spirit and all the littleness are in it.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The picture that looks as if it were done without an effort may have been a perfect battlefield in its making.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Don’t worry about your originality.\u00a0 You could not get rid of it even if you wanted to.\u00a0 It will stick to you and show you up for better or worse in spite of all you … can do.<\/p>\n

\u2022 I would like to be in many activities.\u00a0 I think that anyone who has had the pleasures of study and work for years may be full of regret because he cannot practice in all the arts.<\/p>\n

__________________________________<\/p>\n

\u2022 I have seen a whole gallery of pictures condemned with a sweep of the eye.\u00a0 I remember hearing a prominent artist on entering a gallery declare, “My eight-year-old child could do better than this.”\u00a0 [These] were pictures by Matisse, C\u00e9zanne and others.<\/p>\n

\u2022 I cannot interest myself in whether [paintings] will pass juries or not.\u00a0 More paintings have been spoiled during the process of their making, through such considerations, than the judgments of juries are worth.<\/p>\n

\u2022 To award prizes is to attempt to control the course of another man’s work.\u00a0 It is a bid to have him do what you<\/em> will approve.\u00a0 It affects not only the one who wins the award, but all those who in any measure strive for it.\u00a0 Let the work they do get its honor in being what it is.\u00a0 Prizes generally go amiss.\u00a0 We must realize that artists are not in competition with each other.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022 I am not interested in art as a means of making a living, but I am interested in art as a means of living a life.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Andy Warhol (1962)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2022 I was once asked by a young artist whether he could hope to make any money out of his work if he continued in his particular style of painting.\u00a0 He happened to be a man of considerable talent and had great enthusiasm in his work.\u00a0 But I knew there was no public enthusiasm for such work.\u00a0 I remembered he had told me that before he got really into art he had made a living by designing labels for cans, tomato cans and the like.\u00a0 I advised him to make tomato-can labels and live well that he might be free to paint as he liked.<\/p>\n

[Footnote: Henri died when Andrew Warhola was not yet one year old.]<\/p>\n

__________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022 All things change according to the state we are in.\u00a0 Nothing is fixed.\u00a0 I lived once in the top of a house, in a little room, in Paris.\u00a0 I was a student.\u00a0 My place was a romance.\u00a0 It was a mansard room and it had a small square window that looked out over housetops, pink chimney pots.\u00a0 I could see l’Institut, the Pantheon and the Tour Saint Jacques.\u00a0 The tiles of the floor were red and some of them were broken and got out of place.\u00a0 There was a little stove, a wash basin, a pitcher, piles of my studies… My bed was a cot.\u00a0 It was a wonderful place.\u00a0 I cooked two meals and ate dinner outside.\u00a0 I used to keep the camembert out of the window on the mansard roof between meals, and I made fine coffee, and made much of eggs and macaroni.\u00a0 I studied and thought, made compositions, wrote letters home full of hope of some day being an artist.<\/p>\n

It was wonderful.\u00a0 But days came when hopes looked black and my art student’s paradise was turned into a dirty little room with broken tiles, ashes fell from the stove, it was all hopelessly poor, I was tired of camembert and eggs and macaroni, and there wasn’t a shade of significance in those delicate little chimney pots, or the Pantheon, the Institut or even the Tour Saint Jacques.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Today must not be a souvenir of yesterday, and so the struggle is everlasting.\u00a0 Who am I today?\u00a0 What do I see today?\u00a0 How shall I use<\/em> what I know, and how shall I avoid being victim of what I know?\u00a0 Life is not repetition.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The best art the world has ever had is but the impress left by men who have thought less of making great art than of living full and completely with all their faculties in the enjoyment of full play.\u00a0 From these the result is inevitable.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Go in and find out.\u00a0 The future is in your hands.<\/p>\n

__________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

Henri would have me forget about originality and popularity — satisfaction lies in seeing and expressing.\u00a0 “The true artist regards his work as a means of talking with men, of saying his say to himself and to others.”\u00a0 Yes, that is exactly what I aspire to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The Art Spirit” is a loose collection of thoughts, lecture notes and criticisms by the artist and teacher Robert Henri\u00a0 (1865-1929).\u00a0 My studio friend J. P. Sullivan gave me a copy of this book, which is one of his favorites … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-notes","category-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31287,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions\/31287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}