Democracy, croissants, art and trains (Part Four)
However I am somewhat fascinated by the process of artistic creation almost as much as by the fruits of that creation.
Here in Dublin in the Hugh Lane Gallery is to be found one of the most fascinating of all museum exhibitions, Francis Bacon's studio, removed from London and reassembled centimeter by tattered, raggy, pack-rat hoarded centimeter. Standing looking in to it is like seeing in to the mind of Bacon himself, watching the neurons of creativity fire and explode and race along invisible threads that connect each seemingly random and discarded piece of detritus, the jumbled topography of his flat forming a unique mind-map, each haphazard pile or slashed canvas an anchor point for the synapses of his artistic landscape. While I am not a huge fan of Bacon's work, to see the environment within and from which so many of his pieces were created gives a strange sense of comprehension to the mottled, flowing, and distorted figures that seemingly melt into their surrounds that populate his works. There are no clean lines, no defined boundaries in his studio, each part seems forever on the verge of being buried in a discarded avalanche from and of its neighbour. I may not like his work any more than I did before viewing this, but I feel a greater sense of understanding of the hows and the whys behind it.
The first thing that strikes you about Monet's garden is that it is entirely artificial, from the neatly ordered rows of flowers planted in waves of striking colours that line the paths in front of is house to the pond that hosts the water lilies so synonymous with his 20th century pieces, crafted from the diverted flow of the Epte River with every aspect carefully sculpted by the artist, the landscape itself his canvas. This is a managed, manufactured environment, designed from inception to inspire and delight, which it most definitely does. Over there is the Japanese Bridge, opposite the smaller bridge, here are the willows drooping elegantly into the water, and everywhere on the surface of the pond are scattered the saucer-plates of the lilies, Les Nympheas, resting gently on the reflected purple-greens of trees and flower-lined paths rising to the grey-blues of the Normandy sky above. Every angle instantly familiar and achingly beautiful, yet there is the sense that every leaf, every branch, every petal has been meticulously placed specifically and deliberately by Monet to provide the maximum inspirational effect, it is in every sense inspiration by design, and it couldn't be further away from the haphazard chaos of Bacon's organically evolved studio.
Thus as much as with the process of creation itself, I am fascinated by the impact of Space upon that creation, by the ways in which the environment around you, from the meta-level of the urban space in which your life revolves to the micro-level of the very room in which you now sit, channels, shapes and forms your moods, your thoughts, your actions and reactions.
With that in mind, and shortly before we left for London and Paris, I rented a studio, my very own undisclosed location, a retreat away from all that intrudes and demands and expects my time and attention. If I lived anywhere but the city centre no doubt I would have built a shed at the bottom of my garden to which I could retire at the end of the day and think grand thoughts. Alas while an urban existence has many advantages, a garden is not one of them, and thus I have taken over a former artist's studio, splatters of oils and acrylics still fresh on the walls, as a place to escape and write alone with my thoughts and the occasional caffeinated beverage. Photos will follow at a later stage, but for now I am still in the ongoing process of shaping it to my tastes, more orderly structured and Monet than discarded chaos and Bacon, but with definite traces of both.
In time it will resemble neither and reflect only Unkie Dave, and perhaps too Unkie Dave will come to reflect it.
Links
Francis Bacon's Studio at the Hugh Lane Gallery
More photos from Giverny and Les Nympheas at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris
Labels: Art, Being, Doing, Photography
Tweet
1 Comments:
And you began your journey staying in Mondrian's studio in London, before viewing some of the works he produced in that studio on display in Tate Modern. More threads woven together...the site (the means?)of production and the production itself...
Post a Comment
<< Home