Success in the arts; Painting

Success in the arts. A recorded program produced by Chicago undergraduate division of the University of Illinois under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center in cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcasters. Today success in the art of painting the participants the artist Francis Chait a critic an artist kind of shop and art critic of The Chicago Daily News and teacher at the University of Illinois and teacher critic Alan Weller dean of the College of Fine and Applied Arts University of Illinois. The moderator for the entire series is Studs Terkel radio and television commentator. Here is Mr. Terkel to open the discussion of success in the art of painting. Well since all three of our guest measures Chabon Chopin and well rock triple threat man as artists practitioners of the graphic arts as teachers and as critics suppose we just start the ball rolling arbitrarily with Mr. Chabon. But as an artist this is a general question.

What would you say are the prime requisites for a sensitive dance. Well I think the prime records and training are patients almost tell you much to me neither takes a great deal of preparation to be a good painter a craftsman by all means a craftsman and a patience and a face and I don't think we ought to get into metaphysics exactly here but the only way rather envious of me I think in painting because I've been able to give up some teaching I taught for about 25 years which seems like a long span. Anything going to come back to this matter of teaching and the actual practice itself can show up and as a critic for the moment you're a critic you are not the critics have. All right what do you look for. What's the criterion that separates the good work of art that works well as a

critique of a person who's a spectator and I think God he's looking for a what the painting or a piece of sculpture you vote with makes him feel the response that he gets. Indeed the craftsmanship is taken toward a program to get money some elevation of spirit or feeling or you can arouse a certain mental state of mind to you and the presence of this work of art with an existing Access for work or as a teacher then for the moment you're a teacher again whether you have students you have a class that is say they have the weapons they're good. What do you believe when you try to tell them well in the first place I don't know I can see the craftsmanship is taken for granted because I think there's all too little of it in many quarters of the present time it seems to me that if you

are going to be involved in the teaching of art that you have to take this side of it very seriously indeed. Actually I've been very much disturbed in recent years and the lack of craftsmanship which is prevalent in many quarters today. There are there are great men a very contemporary painting because you're physically in much poorer condition than work friends your are centuries old. This is incidental to our our discussion. But certainly one element of teaching is the the giving of a proper respect for the material. The medium leaves they artist is using what pub the teacher wants to accomplish most of all I suppose it is simply to stimulate a personality is who will naturally express themselves in visual terms. As Rich lays they

possibly can. Going on I think I'm should have a chance to say something here in response to that. I think we should be looking at a work of art and be able to assume a technique a crash machine is adequate for the expression of what is being said. I think today there's a lot of modern work in the Graphic Arts in painting and in sculpture were just technical facility is all there is to recommend it and I think that a work of art should should have something more than that it should communicate some feel in some book stores about that and that is as if we are going to approach a work of art in a critical why. Or as any spectator looks at a work of art. I think the craftsmanship should be adequate for for the work. And most people in looking at works of art are interested in what they communicate. So of course I appreciate that it is a critical part starting out first of

all has an end material was look two points of the night and one of the station listed chip if you could comment on this in the Google Ayyash I could comment These are the two gentlemen heard talking from an educator standpoint what they say is very very true and it's almost an axiom in painting of course and is probably the dumbest thing that I've heard one time painters and no less and if you're talking about successful painters they know it and instinctively and intuitively in every other way oblate painters are all find a way there is a come function with a compelling urge to do these things and as we said. When I talk to Weller a while ago I asked him whether wasn't it a proven saying it when it agreed to all painters in any creative work should have a liberal arts education first. After that given that much background they surely can tell whether they're

capable of technical perfection or whether they need it. There will be the urge surely to create something. What about these points all made by one point made by Mr. Weller inferring that there's a train a sad trend towards slovenliness and an artist today and one man and one and from that let's go to mr. He was married and I got really haven't looked. We have several influences that are causing I think which are fairly well known or you could enumerate them yourself or anyone could. Although I don't think it's an entirely new thing for years and years ago a painting would be bored with with a slick saying they would take rather than anything try to take anything I'm using are fresh. I mean it's just a continuation of that really. Would you say something that communicates and it was Mr. Chopin's point a moment ago the fact that what it is is the other side of the coin. Mr. Weber spoke of the

over the over presence of slovenliness and you spoke about the M4 technique as against what the artist world technique doesn't necessarily mean or precision or neatness. There are some emotional qualities of life that can only be expressed in the I might say a sloppy way the way you want to throw the paint on the on the canvas can sometimes communicate the feeling the activity of the of the painting requires and what is being communicated plan. What about the URL of the university today. It is you have a trend already. The resident artist at university is the man who can paint at the same time and Lysis. What about it is good or bad in terms of art and conformity. Shoot Yes well I think it is true that more and more professional art training is being introduced into university programs all the time and there probably are more people who are looking towards professional careers and they are

who got their training in universities and one of the cages a generation or two generations ago in one way this is been a very important thing for the for the painter because a great number of painters are looking to universities for a position which will make it possible for to continue their own work. I think it's a very fine idea works both ways both for the pattern for the students but less is that know what I think is the danger of being becoming a little less stereotype not from the artist in residence being there but the whole universities set up in that era. Painting programs become so they want to do exactly what the modern museum in New York is showing instead of taking I think the personalities on the local campus say I've been in a University of Georgia several years ago as a resident artist and found a great deal of the

the tradition of the place you know and I think that could be fostered by a resident artist. I think it is a matter of fact I hope for that. Well the point that you make about universities taking too many cute is from certain museums or certain outside institutions or certainly close to related to this idea of success and they are speak of is probably the reason they have done it is because people have measured success in terms of exhibition awards and so on and it's a very serious question as to whether alternately this does mean success and I feel like they are. Well I think we could determine what does it what you mean by success and success to me means that not the financial return I get from painting but the ability to or to be a possibility of doing what I want to do it wherever I want to do it and not being tied down to.

I love to paint a model outdoors somewhere in the woods and I could do it if I could get them out of a little hard right now but that's a criterion of success to me. And it doesn't depend on the museums particularly I'd like to have work in all museum that actually everyone would have as we're going to find an idea. But that isn't the ultimate success I think because their tastes change faster than anyone. What about that can show when I think there is you know. There are many facets to this matter of success. I think that when a painter has completed his painting he had been a successful painter. The marketing of the thing and bring it to a responsive audience is taken over by other agencies dealer galleries and museums who are interested in.

An educational way in bringing contemporary works of art to a public. But there isn't another facet to the education which are two to two art and that every painter. I must face and that isn't a matter of survival in an economic What if he doesn't get it through the sale of his work. He then must take up some other profession that will earn a freedom for him so that he can carry on his painting until such time as the audience recognise the importance of his work of art. What can I say on this matter of livelihood. What is the percentage of artists who can make a living today as artists without say being commercial guys or teaching. Well here in Chicago there are only a few artists who can make a living from the sale of their work in the country as a whole. It's a very very small percentage. One reason that that so many artists are now serving in an educational capacity in colleges and universities is because I

think we're in a phase of scholarship and experimentation in the arts. And so we have a breed called The Artist scholar who likes to be on a college campus for the enrichment that he gets out of the university life and for the contribution that he can make to the entire educational program of the university. And I might remark here that I think while we don't have artists sitting on the sidewalk cafes in a bohemia such as in the Old World in you know America today I think the Bohemia of art is on college and university campuses certainly at East Lansing misters and Michigan there are a number of artists at the State University and I was sitting at Urbana Illinois a number of artistes and they feed and stimulate each other in their professional relationship so they get they have shifted to the campus in this case in terms that you might add that this is a point which you have made about they difficult a

financial or commercial success purely through the products of the Fine Arts had very important connotations from the angle of the educator because of course a lot of the art department is teaching not only these so-called fine arts but also as a rule industrial design and advertising design art education and so on. And one does need to make quite a sharp distinction between these I think it's a mistake to ever advise anybody to go into the field into a field like painting for instance without having your eyes wide open. And certainly a mistake to let young people delude themselves and in any degree at all. As to an easy path ahead of them. The remarkable thing is that there just continue to be very substantial numbers of people who have a very deep and a very sincere desire to express themselves and

in this way and they do do it with the full realization of many of the difficulties ahead. Well didn't really rate you raise the age old question you know livelihood and is it possible and as a number of practitioners are doing this if possible to be a good commercial as a commercial route since the word is still do good work as a craftsman. Yours has to change but you brought in the fine artists while they are the Marne sometimes even envy that good commercial artist they just found they just simply cannot bring themselves to do is what is called commercial art because of their temperament won't or won't permit it. That's all there is to it and commercial artists are all also very enemy is of course a fine artist and counter stand quite far. Why there is a dividing line I don't know I don't want to be snobbish about it all and that and I don't think I am but I think just because of temperament there is a dividing line as you

say between your apartments and you know universities that well damn well they they are artists to as such is concerned sold directly with expressing himself that he can't really express somebody else's. Oh you know where it is all right region of the real painter doesn't make any difference if he's got Danner finest collar around. We don't really have to live like other people and if he does something graphically beautiful let him say it's a pretty horrible word and you're beautiful but there is a dividing line by all means between so-called commercial or commercial artist using the great deal of fine art or so-called fine art painting very greatly implementing the structure to an inn and new building architecture. And by the way we're going to Belize has a great deal of that. So for pure architecture I think they could use a lot more of sculpture. But I think that in the commercial field the artist is not so much

responding to his own criterion of what constitutes a good painting but he trying to serve the art director to please the art director please the client and the more he didn't like himself as the sole arbiter of what he wants to do in the painting. The farther away he gets from the basic principle it would seem to me that it makes for the unity and completion of the work of art. I think the work of art in itself serves even though it is not a commissioned work even though an art director is not asked for it. I think the person who succeeds in expressing some deeply felt response to life is doing it for other people and I think they recognise. Well I don't think that's true of a show when a similar thing becomes useful you might as well throw it away don't you think so I'm talking about spiritual and moral

bonus. Oh I say spiritual I say you know I agree with you that yeah I think that the work of art does feed in that area of man's conscience. I got my from Walden Pond with Thoreau you know. This isn't it isn't there I am betting that any conflict here at all between thorough and shape in here and show open it can. Isn't this consistent with what you said a moment ago about communication the need to communicate. Yes I think they're going to drive on the part of the eye of the artist to give external form to some thought her feeling that he has and when he has expressed it this is success for him you know we spoke of other people meaningly view or the public what about what about public taste today. Would you say it's awfully upbeat in terms of art appreciation would surely be broader than it was I believe because there are so many schools that could

be appreciated by various levels of collector of all of our I guess small amount of money say half wit and her money and her money either to the right rich people because they can collect what they want to collect various kind from the autumn tree kind of a painting which was popular when I was in school and that was when Grant was I don't know if people were paying too and they were repudiating a you know representation large you know Graeme Wood and Thomas Benton now and the autumn tree collector is still here thank heaven because he likes a lot of tree and. The contemporary so-called collector of well I suppose you would call them color expressionists are here and the collectors of the advance painting are not representing what they have spoken in full in advance although I don't think it likely event are here. And of all price brackets and yes I've sometimes been struck with the fact that there really are almost no old painters who do not have their admirers

they don't work generally in a vacuum and there is a whiff to the greasy asian of the present which I think is distinctly you know of a case some years ago or more exhibition here are more papers to look good. There are many more metres Yes but what about this comment often made about exhibitions about museums private galleries and the early play that sometimes for an artist to be exhibited. He has to be sensational rather than profound. What about that can't you. Well I think that the young painter is interested in professional wrecking recognition and through the large important juried exhibitions that are held in American museums and he gets it he gains a professional status that is why it is important for him to submit his his work to many juries until he has come into that kind of recognition.

I think it's possible that they're armed. Probably the greatest painter living in America today is living in obscurity but even in modern methods of advertising and promotion. If you want recognition now this seems to be a necessary thing you know to be able to exhibit in this has become the unfortunate result of your sort. One of them is that there is a tendency to place too much value on something just because it looks kind of different from anything else that one has seemed to or it is they. There is a great emphasis upon novelty for its own sake and that brings with it on the part of a good many people who are working on exhibitions and so forth. A. Feeling that it is alright to kind of neglect or pass over people who are working perhaps very consistent play along a line which they have been developing for

some hears. I think another weakness in the system is that a great many people have wanted to call attention to their work just by impressing you with this year. Physical audacity of it. I constantly see works of our pitches which seem to me are small works of art would have been blown up into very large works and wish simply physical scale has taken the place perhaps of the complete solution of the artistic problems involved in the operation of a museum. Today he involved a lot of showmanship from the standpoint of the director he must put on something that would save his museum from by being just a mausoleum full of old masters. He wants to have some lively contemporary expression until he is partly to blame enough for the more sensational type of art which is exhibited in the museum in or into a Drac attract the public

there. One to place lively. What's the alternative to this you know. Well if you want to be successful in painting I doubt much of childbirth or any Michelangelo is back in Walla Walla Washington or somewhere. If they're good I think they'll come out in the next generation or the next and I don't think the perpetrator of they are all of us suffer either way. It's simpler than know most of these educators are university end museum people think I think a successful artist if he has a personality to express and the craftsmanship and a little background and humbly that is a factor to honor and to humbly express said untruthfully too which is another factor I think you know he'll achieve success according to his own. You guys are way short of a success at any rate and that's always tailored

in a way. When I finished a painting of just one person goes into rhapsodies over it and likes it and possibly plunked down the money for it. I feel as though I'm a great success and not only pleases me it was please someone else. So in other words he labeled traders something and then decided that a great deal of that sort of thing is being done today to trade services for services. If you feel it Mr. Chabon that the quiet man a profound craftsman a good quiet man well he'll achieve recognition while the well is I don't know of course Dolly an exceptionally good showing there are a exceptions to possibly and fame as I say a dozen. Your personality doesn't have so much you know that Michelangelo the garlic on his writing why don't mis shapen character physically and in some charming lovely things and they could have been done yesterday as far as I'm concerned.

Perhaps and this is by running close to the end of one question of my CAN fall of 0 3. Since all schools seem to have their their prophets as well as the disciples and their patrons. Thank goodness. What about the past is it. Is there as much reverence for the past today in terms of artists that say as I was a couple generations ago. Well this is a peculiar situation in in one way because while we are living in a time which places that a tremendous emphasis upon novelty there are many elements in public taste and in popular taste which automatically assume that the works of the past are more important than those of the present. And in a sense this is a new historical development in the well in the Middle Ages in the renaissance for instance. They a great patron of the great builders just automatically invariably patronize the most

progressive artists of their period. Thank you look back over they the history of art you will find that most of the artists of the past whom we admire most greatly today were exactly the ones who are most successful in their own lives down. It's only when you get into the 19th century that this is not correct. We do have a tremendous historical Zaentz that I think as partly explains the rather aggressive quality of many contemporary creative personalities who would react against this and reject it. There's a difference in a in opinion it seems to me between the creative people and the patron. Who did the patron's today. Would you feel OK today are as much a hit in terms of the works that say as the the Industrial they did today in contrast to the nobleman patrons of some centuries ago.

Well I didn't say anything about the nobleman patrons of the past but certainly the collectors today have a rather complex motivations for making collections their interest in investment they're interested in a pretty asian of the work of art as well as a purist any enjoyment of it. This you might say missed it cheapens the wedding of the two here. Yes I think we're talking not we're talking you know in the category of God not pertaining to the younger painters in this country I mean they're not in the 5 or 6 figure category as far as sailing over the sale of their work goes. I was going to say is that when they do they sell their work at a very small price that they're going to be successful that would be one of the clues I think of them success and pain in particular and sculptor did not think that they are a fabulous lady famous the right way to say and and sell out at whatever cost very modestly while they're in school that was my experience and the friends of mine

not be too fantastic with the prices at first. And that's one way to be successful in painting I think. Or another way that agent will come in because they like the word go find someone who cares about your work is of first importance what they can tie his next employer then we start the way we wind up the way we began the artist then leads the patients and the audience the public needs understanding. Well gentlemen thank you. This has been a discussion of success in the art of painting appearing on today's program where the artist Francis Chapman Allen Weller dean of the College of Fine and Applied Arts University of Illinois and kind of chill been our critic of The Chicago Daily News the moderator with Studs Terkel. ANNOUNCER and producer Alfred Partridge success in the arts is a recorded program produced by the Chicago undergraduate division of the University of Illinois under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center. This program is distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters.

This is the end E.B. Radio Network.