Marten Jansen's Abstract Art Blog

Drawing parallels and differences with/between painting and music helps to understand both. The reader will excuse me from drawing from, and referring to, my own experience, because that’s the only source of originality a webmaster has to offer.
Picasso fought a lifelong battle against lovelyness in his art. Partly that’s due to the time in which he was formed as an artist. During the course of the 19th century beauty in art as a goal in itself had become the target of art philosophers and a whole generation of artists had to disavow a style of painting with which they were brought up. That’s why, for instance, Munch’s famous painting The Scream looks so pale (it looks ok on photos in which the saturation of the colors has been enhanced), because he would delibaretely expose his paintings to direct sunlight, so that the colors would lose their permanence. He would refer to his paintings as his children and by treating them rough they would learn to fend for themselves, as he put it, by which he meant that they had to be judged on the basis of their intrinsic artistic quality, not on manneristic properties. Likewise he would take his paintings outside during the winter, exposing them to rain and snow, leading to open-air exhibitions in his garden which must have seemed surreal. At one time his dog ran through one of his paintings.
While signing lithographs Picasso would hold his pen in such an unatural way that the effort it took him to sign, gave his authograph more character, thus avoiding facility, even in his signature. Facility was exactly what Picasso and his peers were trying to avoid, but in Picasso’s case there was probably another factor.
At 15 years old Picasso was already an accomplished figurative painter, working at a professional level, so as a beginning artist he was motivated by the emotions of a child and children are usually not concerned with artistic depth. They just want to make art that is good and fun and perhaps beautiful. You evolve as you grow up, but also, to an extent, elaborate on what you did as a child. There are certain childhood habits you can’t kick and in Picasso’s case lovelyness in art was probably one such habit.
Van Gogh was an adult when he started to paint at 27 years old and had gone through his “moulting period”, as he called it, in which he became dissillusioned with the established values of the world of his father. Needless to say Van Gogh never had any problems with “lovelyness”.
Mozart was a genius composer, but it seems to me that throughout his life he kept doing what he was supposed to do as a Wunderkind: entertain people. During the past decades the center of gravity in the world of music has shifted from Mozart (whose name had always been synonymous with music) to composers like Bach, whose music has more artistic depth.
So I conclude that technically it pays to start learning art at a young age, but artistically you develop childish habits that you never quite get rid of.

I came to this conclusion be analyzing my own development, so those that are interested in famous artists only, will be excused from here on.

As a teenager I was a hopeless romantic and for me music was an exercise in sentimentality. Today I battle against sweet melodies in a way similar to Picasso fighting lovely pictures. In painting I have no such problem, in line with the above-mentioned line of thought, because I started to paint at 26. As a painter I will happily be an aesthetic, but in music I’m a candy machine, although there are ways to emphasize the expressive aspect.

>>> music blog

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Can you spot the difference? I don’t blame you if you can’t. The pic of the left represents an update I did on my Exhibit A painting, the old one now demoted to Exhibit B.

The painting is now a bit clearer in composition, which has resulted in a slightly better photograph, because a digital camera’s built-in software has fewer problems with an adequately composed painting. This shows that a general logic underlies composition in painting.

This is all I can give you today, but I’ve given you music three days ago, so I think I’ve done my artistic duty.

Come to think of it: there is something I would like to say that is of artistic interest. Being a musician now, I’m starting to realize the differences between painting and music. One difference is that if I were to make music in the way I paint, it would be as in your face and deafening as heavy metal. That’s because music is much more direct than painting. I do think painting is a purer art form than music, just because a painter can go much further in incorporating intense messages which, in music, would be seen as controversial. And I have enough of that already, just by not being able to please everyone.

I know this is a non-posting, with the two almost identical pictures, but I felt I had to say something, because ultimately this blog isn’t about me, it’s for you. This blog is about keeping in touch, not about attention-seeking, as my critics call it (or worse). Moreover, if these people would just react on my blog, instead of spreading gossip, then I might be open to their sensitivities. But there’s a trend here: impose your views (or yourself, better still) on people, but avoid every kind of debate. That’s what disqualifies my critics totally. I have reached out, but they continue to be on the control-oriented, polemic path.

On her blog someone makes mention of the Cinderella Syndrome, which goes as follows:

As long as artists believe in the myth of the superheroes (gallery people – MJ) as judge and jury, they will not have domain of the universal house. The mythical dealer would prefer to be indemnified of even the greatest work, no matter how talented this person is, even if they prove to be the new Leonardo, precisely because of this fantastical responsibility

Leonardo with no gallery, no money and (most importantly) no influential connections and no proof of any kind of extensive marketing or promotions apropos for the exclusive NYC market – such cannot exist. This does not need debate: it is common sense! You cannot travel to the moon on a bicycle.

I don’t know about the bike but the condition for an exhibition is that the artist pays the gallery $3000 per exhibition, the gallery taking 50% of the sales revenues. I’d like to see Cinderella go to the ball with $3000 in order to dance with the prince.

The exclusive art market, huh? On the same blog the lady laments about the art market being about money only, with only a small number of galleries actually making any money on art. "The great art works of our time will never be seen!!!!!"

Perhaps because our superheroes would rather be indemnified? Or am I being sarcastic?

In any case, her hubby is a financial big shot (mortgages) so their gallery has "upfront financing".

What I learned is that most galleries in fact operate in the margins themselves. They have their gallery at a hot venue and their upfront financing, but no art and no sales. Oops!

Oh yeah, I have a new painting at http://paintings.name/image-files/exhibit-a.php.

Please take a listen to a recording I made, it’s called Composition One. Not a very imaginitive title, it also took me a long time before I was able to come up with decent titles for paintings.
If the link above doesn’t work, try this (click on musical note on the left).
Or else try this and click on the blue download now link (rather slow download).

I wrote this track, played the guitar and used my laptop and some music production software to record it.

The track is 2:56 min long, its file size weighs in at 4 MB.

I have registered the recording for copyright, so you may not burn it to CD, or otherwise multiply it, but please feel free to add it to your iPod or MP3 player.

From here on all my posts on music will be added to my new music blog at http://music.paintings.name.

I know I drive people to despair with my cat fetish, but I think the’re great. If this painting looks like kids art, it’s because it is, but frankly, I don’t see what’s more mature about people rambling about their human kids…..God is not a golfer, but a professional breeder.

This is just a thingy from 1999 to keep you busy while I’m working on new paintings.

Because the schools are out, this is a prime moment to address the art and/or design students among you and talk about art materials. As mentioned before my primary tool is the palette knife now (but not used in the painting on the left). I can’t tell you how to use the palette knife because that’s entirely personal. In other words: you put some paint on your knife and then onto the canvas. You can apply the paint thick or thin, there are no rules. What does matter is the size of the knife you use: larger knives will leave a very different impression than small knives.
I use the knife for two things: create areas of color, but I also use the knife to paint lines.

Small triangular palette knife (edge 2 cm, 0.8 in) As you can see, I don’t clean my palette knives very often. Contrary to popular belief, I do shower. Single-edge palette knife (edge 5 cm, 2 in)

Drawing lines with the palette knife

For drawing lines the knife doesn’t look like the right tool, but you can create very expressive lines in the following way: just put a blob of paint on the upper half of your knife (like the small triangular one, above) and then, with the tip, start painting a line. You’ll run out of paint after an inch or so, but when you reload the knife’s tip with paint, don’t overpaint any faint spots and don’t fill in gaps in the line segment you made. Most of the time (unless you really think you have to make a correction) leave the line segment in its original state, or else you’ll ruin the expressive effect, and the line segment will become messier every time you work on it. It’ll take some practice but it’s a really expressive way of painting. As you’ll see, using oil paint or acrylic paint, AS IS, to use on the palette knife, is unsatisfactory. What you need is paint with BODY. For this, mix oil paint with acrylic modelling paste and some liquin impasto. Officially, oils and acrylics don’t mix, but unofficially they do. I do recommend using oil paint, as opposed to mixing acrylic paint with acrylic modelling paste, because oil paint simply has more quality. For acrylic modelling paste look for a kind that is essentially transparent. Such paste will still look milky-white in the pot, but in thin layers (or mixed with something) will be almost transparent. Don’t use modelling paste to which a (white) pigment has been added, because you want to leave the color of your oils in tact. Because it’s acrylics, the modelling paste will still affect the color of the mix, making it look matted and dull. That’s where the liquin impasto (LI) comes in, because, miraculously, a little bit of LI will considerably improve the color or the mix, making it much deeper, almost restoring the oil paint’s original color. Be sure not to mix the LI with the oil first, because then the LI won’t properly attach to the acrylics (I think). Just mix the three components together or add the LI last (which is best). The LI makes the mix rather slow drying, with is good, because the acrylics/oils mix is very quick to dry, too quick to my taste. Experiment with proportions. Start mixing acrylics and oils in different proportions. Too little oil will reduce the strength of color, too much oil will produce a putty-like substance that is difficult to process and doesn’t look good. You won’t need to add much LI, just enough to restore the depth of color. [By the way, this post has been updated. Before, I was rambling  about alkyd modelling paste -- what I meant was liquin impasto]. Big triangular palette knife (edge: 5.5 cm, 2.2 in) For completeness I have included a pic of a third type palette knife, which may look more familiar than the single-edge knife, but I prefer the single edge. A large triangular knife is unwieldy.

Abstract Portrait No. 8

This painting was made in 1999 (I think). Its main purpose was to test a new acrylics color I had bought: quinacridone gold, which is the brown color you see in the image. I figured it would work similarly to the burnt sienna acrylics I used in my Egyptian paintings, but it didn’t, maybe because burnt sienna is more transparent. Burnt sienna acrylics mix very well with titanium white, which permits subtle modelling and lead to the manneristic style of my Egyptian paintings.

I have visited no less than six museums during the past months and learned many things, but right now I’m deeply immersed in amateur music production, so all my other activities suffer (still painting, though).

A week ago I bought a Fender Stratocaster, the first decent electric guitar I’ve ever owned. “Decent” is an understatement, because it’s an instrument of pure quality. Years ago I gave up making music out of frustration over my inability to fulfill my artistic dreams by means of the musical medium. I wanted to do everything at the same time: create popular music that was simple and compact and at the same time contain complex harmony and atonality. I consistenly rejected my music teacher’s assertion that popular music consists of the tonic, subdominant and dominant chords, but at the same time I was unable to find a music teacher that would give me a proper grounding in music theory.

Anyway, I’ve always loved playing the guitar. For a painter I’m a pretty normal guy, but as an adolescent I had a physical relationship with my acoustic guitar. I would actually pet it .
To me a guitar is a living person, like a child that needs care and understanding. I like to visit music shops and “meet” its guitars, by running my finger across their strings to check their sound. Some guitars are lovable, others are unfortunate, as in underprivileged, as there are no bad guitars, just bad makers.

Today is June 6th, which, besides D-Day, is the birthday of my late sister, whose portrait is included in the previous post. This is just something I wanted to mention, because this post is not about art, it’s entirely personal, something I permit myself, because this is a blog.

This website started as a hobby. Between 1998 and 2004 I used the Internet to chat and as an excuse to learn webdesign and programming. Then, in 2004 I got into “domaining”, which is a game of registering domains before other people do. Worldwide enormous sums of money are wasted by ordinary people caught in this kind of “Klondike” phenomenon, which refers to economic activity in which more money is made on the people that pursue it, than by these people. (Klondike is a town that has become representative of “gold fever” and the fact that owners of restaurants that fed the gold diggers where the ones that got rich, not the gold diggers).

Nevertheless, domains still fascinate me, because it’s a word game, but I don’t own many. Because I registered  paintings.name in 2004, I felt obliged to develop a website around it. Now it’s leading a life of it’s own and (rightly or not) I’m no longer feeling the pressure of becoming a successful artist (however you define that). To the point that I’ve resumed an old hobby of mine: making music. Now, at last, I feel prefectly comfortable with being a perfect amateur at it. I dabble away with some equipment I bought and reading music theory. I make music like Karel Appel made paintings: passionately and mindlessly, although now I’m trying to get some sense into my musical endevours (and Appel became a famous artist, not to mention).

On the art front: at the moment my style is pure abstract art, so no portraits or social realisms, just big blobs of paint. I do this whenever I get the feeling my art loses energy and I start to be able to predict myself. What’s happening, then, is that the formal side of my painting has gotten worn out, which is why I get into pure abstract art, in order to develop new formalisms, which I then apply to a style that’s partially figurative.

Every time that happens I think I need to move away from School of Paris styled expressionism and get into color field painting, which it’s emphasis on purity. This does result in more clarity of color and concept……which I then exploit to make an expressionistic mess….like a post-Parisionist should.

I can’t discern the exact nature of this process yet, but it results in a gradual change of style.

Margreet

What’s a “Margreet”? It’s a name in Dutch, a language closely related to Klingon, if that’s rings a bell. A former Dutch NATO Secretary General once got into political trouble because he was caught saying that the Dutch language resembles the uttering of animal sounds. The Anglo-Saxon reaction to Dutch is often that it sounds like people spitting. At any rate, Margreet is the name of my late sister, who died of cancer in 1990, at the age of 29 years old.
I know I promised to write biographies of my mother and sister, but when push came to shove I decided that such writings would be a little too personal at this time. Instead I will add their portraits to this site, Margreet’s portrait is at http://paintings.name/image-files/margreet.php.
Actually Margreet never wanted to be called Margreet, because she didn’t like the sound of it, she wanted to be called “Janna”, her second name.
I realize that some of you will feel compelled to refer to this posting as touching, which I find endearing, but nevertheless the portrait of Margreet is meant to be a tribute to her. Now I’m at it, I’m trying to describe Margreet, but again I come to the conclusion that I don’t want to. I’m not like Edvard Munch, who never got over the death of his sister, I’m just your average introvert.. Bear with me, I’m Dutch.. For which I have to apologize, because this site is oriented towards English speaking folks. But if you want me to tell something about myself (as artists are expected to do), then things will inevitably get cheesy, because of the couleur locale I find myself in.