by Bret Stalcup

Created on: August 06, 2007

One of the interesting aspects of modernism is the way in which it allowed for the expansion of parameters in painting; in other words, modern art has both posed and answered the question, "what is paintingwhat qualifies an object as a painting?" For centuries this was a question that needn't be asked, as paintings tended towards direct representation of subject matter. With the advent of stylized interpretation and moving through to paintings of pure abstraction, critiques, viewers, and artists alike were forced to consider the essential nature of painting. Philosophically, this movement towards abstraction can be seen as being a more uniquely human expression than direct representation; after all, our most singular nature is our rational capacity, and this derives from our ability to abstract and manipulate informationlanguage, for instance. Aesthetically, movement beyond traditional forms allows us to come to understand basic questionswhat is the nature of color, for examplein ways that most pre-impressionistic paining could not, by its very limits, allow. In order to know what is possible, we must go beyond the boundaries of the ordinary.

These movements were only possible as a result of the return to humanistic values that arose from the Renaissance. For centuries the Church had dictated cultural norms, and these included the doctrine that humans were subservient to structured orders of reality. As this oppressive yoke was thrown off a natural reaction was the movement to expressionismfrom "Thou shalt" to "I can," we began to acknowledge the validity, the primacy of individual expression. Here we have a higher human functioninstead of what is we have what ifthe font of all great human expansion. Imagine what artistic limitation we would have if Cezanne had never painted Mont-Sainte Victoire, if Matisse had failed to create Woman with the Hat. Here we have breathtaking uses of color and formfar beyond what any eye could see in any landscape or face left to natural devices. By creating such works, these pioneers of artistic vision allow us something preciousan opportunity to understand, to reflect upon that which may have been too close to see. In this regard, artistic visionaries bear much in common with mystics throughout the agesthe ability to show us something more.

Yet this process isn't unidirectional; rather, it necessitates a reciprocity, an acknowledgment that their inferences and their creations are valid. Artistic expansion isn't simply a matter

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