To me, these days, any artist whose work has a resemblance to its actual real-life subject is “conservative,” so too any artist whose sense of beauty corresponds to what is considered beautiful in real life regardless of context.
Above, Beth in White [2006]. Below, Corner of Ripka and Wilde Streets [2010].
Peter’s website is featuring his more recent work such as the latter, and the gentle observer notes a certain evolution in style, toward a less literal and more impressionistic and personal use of line and color.
I relate to PVD’s work not only on the visceral level, that I feel present at the scene, but it’s more than that. His newer work has added impact, and for that first glimpse of the scene, I’m an artist—I’m Peter, the artist—myself. He has lent me his discerning and loving eye, so that I may see what he sees, and feel it as he does.
What a gift, more a sharing really, between artist and audience.
As a matter of disclosure, Peter Van Dyck is related to me by marriage: my sister is married to his father. The names are coincidence, or kismet, depending on your view of these things.
I do hope that that provincial fact, or my tarnishing him with the “conservative” brush, does him or his work no fatal disservice. I was shown his earliest work over a decade ago, and even then it made my heart rise—life seemed just a little bit richer for having seen his work.
I’d say if there’s a conservative approach to artistry, it’s this—to show us what we strive to see but cannot, the beauty we know is there but lack the clarity of vision to perceive.
The kind artist, the lover of life and the lover of man, lends us the startlingly clear blink of his eye now and then, although it takes him hours upon hours [and a lifetime of preparation] to get it down onto his canvas.
I have stood on the corner of Ripka & Wilde and wanted to be nowhere else in creation at that very moment; I have had Beth take my breath away.
For that, to Peter Van Dyck, I am grateful, and shall be all my life.
I’d say if there’s a conservative approach to artistry, it’s this—to show us what we strive to see but cannot, the beauty we know is there but lack the clarity of vision to perceive.
That’s why I like a lot of Turner’s work. (Granted he is dead and gone was considered daring for his day, but you can give me because it was in the victorian period.
I can intellectually appreciate modern and postmodern rt but it doesnt give me the same visceral sense of grandeur.
Thx, Mr. Murali. I struggled most to put into words the very sentence you chose to respond to.
I can intellectually appreciate modern and postmodern rt but it doesnt give me the same visceral sense of grandeur.
I agree also. I’m no humbug toward such things, I like ’em. It’s just that if we must engage our minds to appreciate them, we have already gone past the visceral—literally, our gut response.
No guts, no glory—or grandeur, by which I think you mean exactly the same thing.
Excellent contribution to the discussion. Also, yet another TVD claim to fame!
As I said up in my threads, this would have been a fine addition up front, but works well here at DC.
I read this on the front page, and then wrote a comment and hit submit and you’d de-listed it and the comment went into the Internet Black Hole Machine of Doom. I rescued the comment to a note. This post is different, just a tad. I’m quoting the other, because this line struck me:
> I feel present at the scene, but more, that the artist
> has lent his discerning and loving eye to me, so that
> I may see what he sees: for this brief moment and
> glimpse, it’s as though I’m artist myself.
That is, I think, one of the bits about good art that makes good art… good art. You see what the artist saw. You feel something … whether it is what the artist was thinking he wanted you to feel or not. But there’s a communication there, between you and the artist, through the medium.
I’m a Rembrandt guy, myself.
You get it, PatC. Peter Van Dyck is related to Anthony Van Dyck [or so they tell me], one of Rembrandt’s fellow Dutch Masters, so there’s that.
If you’re a fan of realism, can I suggest checking out some Thief: the dark project (and attendant scores of fanmissions?)? It is perhaps liberal, in that it shows not what is there, but what could be. Still I think you might like it.
http://www.marchandmeffre.com/detroit/
Thx, Kim. “Left-brain” art relies heavily on content and context, and doesn’t particularly move me as art. I don’t say it’s invalid or that it can never move me, but I don’t rate it with say, the Dutch Masters, for reasons given here:
https://ordinary-times.com/blog/2012/02/12/another-0-02-on-art/