Still Life Chapter 5 Approaching Abstraction
Studies IV December 2013
Photographs Inspired by Giorgio Morandi
For an Introduction to the Still Life project and the links to all of its chapters visit: Still Life
Click on the images once to enlarge
Introduction: Encountering the Deep Adventure of everyday reality
Morandi's good friend and art scholar from Balogna, Francesco Arcangeli (1915-1974) wrote the following:
"Morandi's painting lives its own life. This is its choice and its strength. Are this life and this choice outmoded? Is Morandi offering us what are now bygone ideals? . . . His work still implicitly encapsulates a difficult but possible way of life . . . While everything all around is conspiring to eliminate the old artistic and moral truths, Morandi instead professes and honors them in unusual ways every day and in every work. In this sense, work after work, his art confidently seeks in its apparent visual normality to encounter the deep and threatening adventure that lies within the everyday existential condition."
Seeing and celebrating the essential mystery in life's most ordinary objects and places is the major theme of my Morandi inspired Still Life project. Its related but secondary challenge is the creation of an image whose vibrant, tense visual edge bridges the subtle gap between the representation of appearances and a visual reduction that approaches abstraction. It seems to me this difficult balance of two kinds of imagery best unveils the archetypal, structural underpinnings of everyday reality.
Seasonal changes: enter Winter
The last chapter included some autumnal photographs (trimmed rose plants with rose hips, a pumpkin, the meadow image which shows that all the leaves have fallen off of the trees beyond the meadow). This chapter introduces snow images from the first major snow fall here in Canandaigua, NY. I love the way snow transforms the world, and with the onset of the winter season I tend to become more introverted than ever, and with that I am seeing in this chapter more of a tendency toward visual transformation and abstraction.
I invite you to look at each photograph as if it were an abstract image - even if at first its appearance seems representational. For example, shift your attention toward the forms of the objects, their relationships to each other and the spaces between them; focus on the qualities of light and color that pervade each image. Intuitively open to a silent language that is being offered by the image which can unveil the hidden secrets embedded in the things photographed, perhaps more accurately, the photograph itself.
I contemplate each photograph on its own terms, but then I try to see it in its larger visual context, that is to say in the flow of images within the present chapter but also in the Morandi inspired project as a whole. Each picture is but a small, simple study, a brief visual adventure. On the other hand the body of work is an attempt at probing deeply into the ineffable space of Heart. I think of my creative process as a journey, a journey that we can share together through the images that are given, which take us into the mystery and the greatness of life that can be discovered in the everyday reality of things.
La Pittura Metafisica
One of Morandi's important early friendships was with the painter and poet-philosopher Carlos Carra who was part of the La Pittura Metafisica movement in Italy (1911-1920). In 1919 Carra wrote of the magical power of ordinary things which surely must have impressed Morandi, the young and budding artist: "They are ordinary things that work on our soul in a beneficial way, arriving at the extreme summits of grace, and he who abandons them inevitably falls into the absurd, that is into nothingness . . . Ordinary things reveal those simple forms that speak to us of a higher state of being, which itself constitutes the secret magnificence of art . . . "
See the following online essay by Mariana Aguirre: Giorgio Morandi and the "Return to order": From Pittura Metafisica to Regionalism, 1917-1928.
Studies
Morandi's paintings, which were small in scale and repetitious in his use of the same purified subject matter, was often mistakenly taken by viewers of his time as being of little or no consequence. His work had been criticized by his contemporaries (from the late 1920s through the time of his death in 1964) for lacking the power and scale in both subject matter and image format typically associated with great artistic works. He was perceived by many of not having the energy, courage, or the drive for accomplishing anything other than mere studies, or exercises.
Others criticized his impulse toward abstraction. Carlo L. Ragghianti wrote these revealing words: "Morandi was certainly not unaware of the fact that his radical reduction of the world, while preserving its appearances, was a translation and perhaps even more, a silent revolution . . . In the last analysis, either one believed that Morandi's painting was a painting of still lifes in accordance with traditional, academic, or modern classifications . . . or one recognized that this painting of "pure" objects devoid of all semantics represented the utmost attainment of a transcendence of form over a sensory empiricism which is dispersed, accidental, mutable, and deceptive."
Historically, it's usually been difficult for a culture to see and understand the art produced in its own contemporary context. It helps to have some distance, some time, a broader social context in which to finally recognize and absorb what was once considered in the past uninteresting or insignificant. Flashy contemporary performances, large productions, the current social issues of the day . . . often steal the show from an artist like Morandi who straddles the past and future in his subtly inventive imagery that approached abstraction.
My Morandi inspired Still Life project is part of an ongoing series of projects entitled Studies. (links to all the Studies projects are provided at the bottom of this page) As such, I consider each image in my Still Life project as a study, an exercise or investigation into seeing and visual invention. With this open attitude I am more willing to take a chance of failing at being adventurous. At the same time it also allows me the freedom to hold close to conventions of representation when it seems important to do so. When each image is embraced in the understanding that it is but a singular part of of a larger integrated whole, then the singular image can be respected as an equal to the whole of which it is a part.
Consider the holographic idea that it's possible to see the entire collection of Morandi inspired photographs within each of its individual images.
The Photographs
Chapter 5
Approaching Abstraction
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #1
Snow on picture window overlooking the meadow
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #2
Dried flowers in vase, curtains, snowy meadow
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #3
Cactus, cloths line, snowing
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #4
Snowing, cloths line pole and wire, Sequoia
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #5
Ceramic bird detail
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #6
Snow on basement screen and plants
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #7
Reflections on refrigerator door
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #8
Light patterns on bench
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #9
Nocturne: Three light reflections on granite countertop
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #10
Nocturne: Reflection on refrigerator door, basket on top
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #13
Reflection on table with ceramic bowl
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #14
Plant leaves, shade pull strings
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #15
Winter squash
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #17
Dust covered hanging light
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #19
Light on Calendar, nail and shadow
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #20
Basement hallway door
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #21
Wrapping paper on pingpong table
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #22
Small black pillow on brown rocking chair
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #23
Pink cat toy ball
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #24
Nocturne: Couch pillow
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #25
Bowl of pears
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #26
Hanging plant and shadows
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #27
Dried flowers, vines, shadows
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #28
Front entrance mirror and refracted light
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #28A
Laundry Basket, Shadow
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #29
Lamp turned on at dusk
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #30
Compost bucket with warm early morning light
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #32
Dishrag hanging on dish rack
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #33
Black metal cooker
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #34
Two pingpong balls under a paddle
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #35
Two birds, one paper, one ceramic
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #36
Two cloths hangers with clips
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #37
Two salt shakers
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #38
Red tea bags steeping in glass contaianer
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #39
Nocturne: Bell shaped light
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #40
Wreath Shadow
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #41
Front door wreath
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #42
Front door wreath
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #43
Deck wreath, snow impacted against sliding deck door, cat
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #44
Little Christmas tree with red bow
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #45
Meadow with snow at dusk, Sequoia tree, cloths line pole
Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5, Image #46
Nocturne: Electric candle and vines
This project was placed on my Welcome Page on December 23, 2014.
I intend to place a collection of flower still lifes on my
Check the "Newest Additions" section.
Best Wishes for 2014!
Still Life ~ Photographs Inspired by Giorgio Morandi
Welcome Page to The Departing Landscape website which includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating back to the 1960's, my resume, contact information, and more.
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