Geography

I am ashamed to admit that I am one of those Americans poor in Geography. Perhaps, that is the reason I have no sense of direction. In fact, geography was never taught until I attended college; at which time, I completely ignored it. As I had a poor background in geography, all art historical references to cities were, to my mind, somewhere in Europe. Frankly, it wasn't until ten-years ago that I discovered the location of Wales! I always thought Wales was an island off the southern-most tip of England, and the only way to reach it was by ship. But then, you would run into France.

So, now, as I read the international news I check to see on both my atlas and globe where each discussed country is located. The hardest area to lock in my mind is the Middle East which beat out Africa, another country that has taken me years to understand how different is the north from the south.

Discussing my Middle East predicament with a friend, she suggested, "It's because, if they're not warring with each other (or another), their borders always seem to be changing."

"You mean like Illinois would go to war with Wisconsin?"

"Yes."

"Maybe what we should do is confuse the rest of the world. We should move our contiguous borders every 20 years. But first, every year, we could change the name of our state capitals."

"Or better yet. Change every state capital's name to the same one name."

[I know this would work to confuse others. In my western suburb outside of Chicago each town is jammed one-against-another. Best yet. Each town has a main street called "Main Street!" After 25 years here, I still don't know what town I'm in.]

Ida Kotyuk©

www.portraits-oils.com

If you get fewer than 2,000 rejections a year, you are not working hard enough.

What I Learned Today

1.

No matter the promises I make to myself and no matter my good intentions, I do nothing on Sundays. Rather than beat myself up, I should acknowledge it is Sunday and stay in bed and read.

2.

Back in my school days, there were two areas of study that sent me to sleep within ten seconds. The first area was anything to do with architecture. My instructor had only to say, "This is an arch." My head would fall back, my eyes close, my mouth would gape open, I would fall into a deep sleep, and begin to snore. That is really embarrassing. My head never fell onto my desk.

The second area of study to put me to sleep was history. I think history is taught differently, today. All I remember was being taught dates and "this" is why the date is important. The dates were rarely in context to social/cultural events.

In order to understand the Fauves I discover it is best if I understand the Impressionists. In order to understand the Impressionists, it is best to understand Paris. In order to understand Paris during that period, it is best if I understand Napoleon III.

So this blog today is about Napoleon III, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. I know I am wrong 50% of the time; but the depth of my "wrong" amazes me. Knowing nothing of III, I imagined him to be a watered-down version of his uncle. I think it's because in all his portraits, he has those bedroom eyes; as if he were partially asleep. So I was surprised as to the extent he remodeled Paris; uprooting, if not evicting, 100,000 people to make room for his Boulevards. I read that some families had to move two or three times in a five-year period for those boulevards. Hmmm…. I ask myself, is that when the French developed le shrug?

And so, for the young Impressionists, Paris was a city under constant construction. Rather than these artists being overwhelmed, they wished to become a part of the Parisian mayhem. Would I have had such courage?

Ida Kotyuk

www.portrait-oils.com

Stuff I Learned This Week

To make a short story long, I recently, became interested in the Fauves and their ideas about painting. I especially enjoy their sense of color and fun. Though I love being a portrait painter, in my own personal work, I like to break away and experiment. I do this by either painting abstract landscapes or I copy the "masters" that came before me. Recently I have been copying both the Fauve and some Impressionist paintings.

To follow their thinking and before I could immerse myself into the language of the Fauves I saw a need to better understand the Impressionists. So, I began reading about the history of Impressionism. Sure enough, even after college and graduate school, it is a good idea to never stop learning and to always be curious.

Stuff I learned:

In 1855 Paris there were three serious ideas (and arguments) about painting. The idealists, the romantics, and the new bratty boy on the block, realism. [Daumier did a wonderful cartoon on these issues].

The idealist paintings referred to Greek classical tradition and the artists expected the viewer to be "classically" taught. That is why their paintings refer to Homer, Greek philosophers, etc. Their colors were neutral and cooler. [I've had classical training and I would never have figured that out. Obviously, I don't carry knowledge forward very well.]

The romantics said phooey with the cool neutral colors. We want drama. We want emotion in modern settings rather than classical history; or emotional paintings rather than learned paintings.

The realists considered the two as idealists because "their" paintings were imagined and existed in their mind. I.e., Delacroix never saw a lion hunt, though he painted one. [The differences among the three surprised me.]

Paris' Academy of Fine Arts was founded in 1648 by Louis XIV! The French citizens and following governments promoted the exhibits as essential to French nationalism. [I thought the French tore everything down during the revolution of 1789. And. I was wrong. Did the French have a greater sense of nationalism than the Chinese of 1911?]

That it was Courbet(!) who opened the door for Impressionism! [I understand that realists painted scenes that they themselves saw and experienced and that they were the ordinary and daily occurrences. But I was unaware they purposely avoided the Romantics' heightened emotions and the classicists "learned" theories.]

My education has been in the studio arts, but I am surprised my art history classes didn't discuss these turning points in greater depth. But then, that is the purpose of continuing education.

Ida Kotyuk

www.portraits-oils.com