Baren Digest              Wednesday, 19 June 2002      Volume 19 : Number 1868


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From: "Bill and/or Lynda Ritchie" <ritchie@seanet.com>
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 07:51:30 -0700
Subject: [Baren 18392] Baren Digest V19 #1867 - Much to Munch 

Munch's thread provides a lot, and I'm glad to read this. My interest was
picqued early. I think it was because my best friend was crazy about Munch,
and he was himself crazy about himself, too. He adopted Munch's style in
painting and the parts of Munch's lifestyle he liked. We shared a lecture
night at the Seattle Art Museum when the Duke University Collection was
here. I spoke about the prints, he spoke about Munch's mental illness and
Munch's paintings.

Of course college teachers get to go abroad periodically, and my first trip
out of the US was to Oslo. Part of the time I spent living in the Munch
Museum's Scholar apartment, and daily I was given access to the blocks,
stones, plates and tools from Munch's studios. Also, of course, to the
library. I believed, and still do, you get insight into the artist's heart
and mind when you can handle the blocks. Some of those woodblocks were very
fragile, but you could see every trace of his innovative, lazy-man's
approach to color registration, etc.

He was a terrible printer, and his craft was pretty bad, too. He hired
professionals to do his editions when he became more successful. The
interplay between his painting and printmaking is still the true measure of
his contributions to painting and printmaking history.

So, while at the Munch Museum, of course I held the blocks that were cut
with the fret saw, and allowed to look at the proofs that any one of us,
today, would recycle or throw away, motivated as we are today, sometimes, by
some "standard" of appearance or rules-of-thumb.

Munch was a very smart man--he had to be in order to survive what he
survived. He applied his odd, demented way of looking at things and his will
to live with TB, irony, the industrial age and artistic confinement. He came
very close to dying from either or both TB and mental illness.

His printmaking tricks benefitted all of us "moderns" in the end. I wonder:
If you've read the book or seen the film, "A Beautiful Mind" you might see a
parallel between other histories of peoples' strange perceptions, applied
intellect, survival and loss that individuals experience and sometimes
survive. I wonder about education, especially, that valorizes pain and
suffering.

Above I said "survive," but not "overcome". Because after Munch's cure, his
art was tame and boring. On the other hand, what kind of society is it that
enthuses over works and deeds (like cutting off one's ears, or having a girl
friend shoot a finger off her lover's hand) that excite and attracts
attention, while works of fine craft and methodical works usually go
unnoticed or are sent into the categories of consumer commodities, craft,
design and commercial intentionalism?

I owe much to Munch and other oddball artists like my other teacher in Oslo,
Rolf Nesch, plus the other artists known to have made printmaking an art
form, this "language" that happens to use the same lexicon and grammar as
visual reproduction but, in the hands, hearts and minds of creative,
inventive, discovering and imaginative people, creates unique pictures of
the world.

- - from Seattle (with love and gratitude to Rolf Nesch for getting me into
that apartment!)


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From: "Lee and Barbara Mason" <bemason@concentric.net>
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 08:14:25 -0700
Subject: [Baren 18393] Munch 

Bill,
What a great opportunity you had to see the blocks and know the way Munch
worked! We have some Escher blocks at the Museum here in Portland and it is
so amazing to see them. Time is so relative, isn't it? Going to Scotland
sure put time in perspective for me. It had been awhile since I was over the
ocean and the great age of things fades from your mind. Guess we will just
all work hard where we are and let time take care of itself!
Best to you,
Barbara

>
> Of course college teachers get to go abroad periodically, and my first trip
> out of the US was to Oslo. Part of the time I spent living in the Munch
> Museum's Scholar apartment, and daily I was given access to the blocks,
> stones, plates and tools from Munch's studios. Also, of course, to the
> library. I believed, and still do, you get insight into the artist's heart
> and mind when you can handle the blocks. Some of those woodblocks were very
> fragile, but you could see every trace of his innovative, lazy-man's
> approach to color registration, etc.
>


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From: ArtfulCarol@aol.com
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 15:37:53 EDT
Subject: [Baren 18394] Re: Munch 

"Lazy man's approach to registration"?  I'd like to share  about that.
Carol Lyons
Irvington, NY

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From: mturner@Ms.UManitoba.CA
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 16:14:09 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [none]

I've been visiting m y duaghter who lives just outside of New Haven 
near Yale U.  Today we visited the Yale University Art Gallery, where 
there's a Frankenthaler show.  I'd seen reproductions of some of her 
woodcuts but was unprepared for the monumental scale of several 
of these.  She worked with professional printmakers, who cut the 
blocks and printed for her, in one print using over 50 colors.  
Depending on the prints she combined hand-made stained paper, 
for the most part water-based inks, paper pulp, and a variety of 
types of wood for the different grain patterns.    I believe most of the
printes use water-based pigments, but some of the smaller ones 
appear to be oil-based.  The descriptions on the wall and in the 
catalogue weren't clear about this.

Her blocks were cut into pieces with a jig-saw but the pieces were 
not printed all at once. She printed many of the pieces several times, 
using different colors and inking techniques. A few of the blocks are 
on display, and were obviously cut with a router.  

Anyone living close enough to visit Yale might want to make the trip.

Ther Yale Univ Art Gallery web site for her exhibit is:
  
http://www.yale.edu/artgallery/exhibitions/2002_frankenthaler.htm

Myron Turner

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From: "Cathryn BACKER" <cbacker@bigpond.com>
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 07:17:06 +0800
Subject: [Baren 18396] Back on line! 
Yay! Here I am back on line with baren after my server kept bouncing all =
my baren emails. Yay!
Missed you all very much.
Cheers
Cathryn
Tom Price, West Australia



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End of Baren Digest V19 #1868
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