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Reflections of The Postmodern Era On Painting
3.2
Modern Painting/ Postmodern Painting
Clement Greenberg, one of the prominent art critics of the 20
th
century, has determined what
qualifications modernist painting has to have and what it should be in his essay Modernist
Painting. According to Greenberg, modernist painting should firstly be seen as painting. He
emphasized that illusion of the third dimension in art should be disregarded and individuals
should turn back to the core of painting in which artistic plastic elements such as color, form,
fabric and dye are important.
3.3
Modernist Painting
Modernist painting promotes:
Purity, sublimation, return to the core
Authenticity
Experimentation
Abstract, abstraction
Flatness, introducing two dimensions that painting shares with no other form of art
Individuality, personality, freedom of the artist
Going forward, transforming
Consciousness
Innovation, finding and using new expressions by using the plastic elements of painting
Futuristic
Simplicity, clarity
Pioneer
3.4
Postmodern Painting
Postmodern painting promotes:
Limitless, feeding from history, tradition on all kinds of universal art
Figurative, return to the classical figuration
Pluralism, collaboration of different forms and disciplines
Eclectic
Composition and inspiration aesthetics
Dwells on the past; refers to the past and various cultures.
Versatile, double meaning that includes irony and fun, allegory
A narration both ironic and realistic
Uniting, collaboration and unification, using unrelated object together
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4.
Anthology of Postmodern Artist and Their Works
4.1
Carlo Maria Mariani (1931, Italy)
Mariani has started the conceptual painting in 1970s and produced technically perfect works
by getting inspiration from art history. The works of the artist, who has used a variety of
sources from classics to 21
st
century, includes dialogues from art history. Allegories, dreams,
Medusa’s head, daily life and remains of ancient cities have become the personal iconography
of the artist. His figures have a sophisticated and timeless beauty.
As can be seen in Figure 1 which belongs to the artist, who is one of the pioneers of
postmodern painting, one can see an idealized Medusa situated upon ancient ruins, holding
the head of a contemporary man. Medusa, whose head is cut in mythology, has changed roles
with a man in this painting. The modern architecture in the background provides a contrast
with classical architecture and shows the ambiguity of the contemporary time and space.
Figure 1. C.M.Mariani, Allegoria Della Critica
Figure 2. J. Vaerio, Las Meninas
4.2
James Valerio (1938, USA)
The artist, who makes figurative, realistic and detailed paintings, says in an interview that he
takes everyone as reference instead of a special model, as everyone has their own different
portrait in themselves. As he finds large figures more realistic and surprising, these figures
have a more prominent place in his paintings. The artist makes photorealistic paintings and
uses a wide-angle camera to make it more detailed after planning what he is going to
photograph. Among his influences are Hogarth, Manet, Ingres, Velazquez, Caravaggio and
Lucien Freud.
Figure 2, which Valerio made by getting inspiration from Velasquez’s Las Meninas,
gathers attention as a direct reference to it with its name. His composition is plainer than
Velazquez, and stable with narrow and vertical doors and figures in space. We can understand
that it is a contemporary space with the tiles on the floor, a contemporary woman in a
wedding gown in a lit room in the middle, tapestry with rose motifs and a table covered with
roses which one can see partially. It is a postmodern approach as the artist takes his themes
from art history.
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Reflections of The Postmodern Era On Painting
4.3 Odd Nedrum (1944, Sweden)
Uncomfortable with the modern art view, this figurative artist from Norway has started to
learn the neo-baroque style on his own and uses Rembrandt’s techniques in his paintings.
After a period in which he decided on modern or classic painting, the artist chooses classics.
In his early works which he made on very large canvases, themes are generally about clashes
in nature. Light and color palette in his works show the influences of Rembrandt and some if
his compositions overlap with William Blake, as well as having clues from the contemporary
era. After the 1980s, he underwent a transformation and made paintings about personal
objects apart from figures. The artist, who describes himself as a kitsch painter rather than a
contemporary, uses himself and his family as models and attracts attention with self-portraits
that he made in different times as did Rembrandt. (Figure 3)
Figure 3. O. Nedrum, Self Portrait
With Eyes Closed
Figure 4.D. Ligare, Man With Crow
4.4 David Ligare (1945, USA)
Ligare mentions that, in order to understand art, there is a language that we need to see in art
works apart from the techniques and that we should know its language and special meanings
of words that dwell in it. In his interview with Robert Dickenson in Realism and The New
Ideal he states that he is running against the works developed with the help of philosophy of
art, of which he teaches and knows the past and modern history. He also says that he is a
classicist rather than a realist, and that it is important for him to be the first one and a pioneer,
as well as mentioning the traditional one is actually a contemporary reality.
Ligare, who is described as a hyperrealist, defines himself as a classicist. Many of his
works echo Rene Magritte’s. A Hellenistic vibe is visible in his works of white marble with
fuzzy fabrics. The movement in his works looks like a statement among events. Figures also
take part in his landscapes and still life paintings. Clothes that belong to the classical era on
his figures are somehow adapted to the contemporary fashion. He presents this by following
the contemporary and blending it with past.
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