Homage à André Malraux - Introduction aux 'Voix du Silence' . . . . . . . .
The American Century: Art
& Culture, [1900-2000]
NOTE: - On Proportion
- "Proportion depends less upon equality of parts than upon that agreement among them that is determined by their relation to a whole: The dimensions of the room gave a feeling of right proportion." [Urdang, Laurence, ed. Random House Dictionary of The English Language. New York: Random House,1968.]
QUOTES: - Joan Miró, 1958
- "In a picture, it should be possible to discover new things every time you see it. But you can look at a picture for a week together and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life. For me, a picture should be like sparks. It must dazzle like the beauty of a woman or a poem. It must have radiance, it must be like those stones which Pyrenean shepherds use to light their pipes . . . . "
"I feel the need of attaining the maximum of intensity with the minimum of means. It is this which has led me to give my painting a character of even greater bareness.
My tendency towards bareness and simplification has been practiced in three fields: modeling, colors, and the figuration of the personages.
In 1935, in my pictures, space and forms were still modeled. There was still chiaroscuro in my painting. But, little by little, all that has gone. Round about 1940, modeling and chiaroscuro were completely eliminated.
A modeled form is less striking than one which is not. Modeling prevents shock and limits movement to the visual depth. Without modeling or chiaroscuro depth is limitless: movement can stretch to infinity.
Little by little, I've reached the stage of using only a small number of forms and colors. It's not the first time that painting has been done with a very narrow range of colors. The frescoes of the tenth century are painted like this. For me, they are magnificent things . . . . "
[Joan Miró, 1958][From: Ashton, Dore, ed. Twentieth-Century Artists on Art. New York: Pantheon Books. 1985.]
The Work Featured Above: The work presented here is 'The Vision of the Thrones' [ by Giotto] - See many of Giotto's paintings along with the Stories of San Francis, Assisi, Upper Basilica - (Collection of the Vatican).
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