Sensory Experience of Perception

this is the second sandbox page

 It is obvious to me that the cumulative and rapid acceleration ef urbanization and global warming are transforming our world in ways that are dreadful to contemplate.

In arguing about saving the environment, economics and greed trump science.

Aesthetics and the subjective appreciation of nature are an essential foundation in the argument for conservation.  

I have come to believe that aesthetics and the subjective appreciation of nature are an essential foundation in the argument for conservation.  

 that Steiner employed the phrase sensory experience of perception, which describes the act of perception as a neurological process. 

1/27/24

Paintings' success depend on their composition. This is an example of the difference between paintings that are about the literal rendition of pictures, and paintings that address universal elements of composition, irrespective of the extent to which a painting diverges from the image, or is without recognizable content. 

It can be difficult to tell whether, or to what extent, a painting meets the above criteria.

I hope this] leads to the original coinage of the phrase, and, ultimately, into the origins of this idea about the nature of perception.

Pissarro’s literal rendition ignored, and failed to address, universal elements of composition.

Paintings' success depend on their composition. This is an example of the difference between paintings that are about the literal rendition of pictures, and paintings that address universal elements of composition, irrespective of the extent to which a painting diverges from the image, or is without recognizable content. 

It can be difficult to tell whether, or to what extent, a painting meets the above criteria.

During a gallery talk I compared the wire armature supporting a clay sculpture to the pictorial support provided by the underlying compositional elements of a painting. To my delight, this resonated with the audience.

this version is not the good one 6/4/23 Saugerties

In Walter Benjamin: an Introduction to His Work and Thoughts (2004 in German, 2010 in English), Uwe Steiner gives a description of Benjamin’s discussion of Critique of Pure Reason, in which Benjamin quotes Kant to the effect, “ ... ‘that all speculative knowledge is limited to objects of experience,’ and that we can have knowledge of things only insofar as they present themselves as objects of sensory perception, that is, as phenomena.”

note: reconstruct Lichtsteine quotation.  Anchorage Farm 6/3/23, Saugerties NY

place to work on RANT

Taking it in all at once is overwhelming, and nearly unbearable. I struggle to understand and describe it. The deceitfulness  and selfishness of the perps – there's no need to name them all – leaves me incredulous. Yes they are greedy, but how can they be so greedy that they willingly consign their descendants, people who will remember their names, to such a miserable fate?

One of the themes of The Rise of the West is the author's thesis of a connection between the superiority of weapons technology, logistics, and military tactics that developed parallel to the cultural evolution of the West, thereby enabling the West to achieve global hegemony. 

If it’s environmental collapse, it will be protracted and utterly miserable. If it’s war games, it will be immediate and acutely miserable. One or the other seems unavoidable – global warming or nuclear winter. 

 MISCELLANY STORAGE (begun 10/13/2020 - Mars opposition)

Notes for People Page

“Lene,” Arlene Washburn, Fourth grade teacher, family friend, friend and mentor. Lene, whom I had to call Miss Washburn when she was my fourth grade teacher, taught me to draw and paint, how to use water colors, how to learn. She also set an example for living, and dying.

Lene arranged for me to show my work to Madam Chouinard who encouraged me to apply to The Chouinard Art Institute  MFA program. I was not able to do so, but her endorsement reinforced my belief in my talent.

More on Mr. Webb.

Mr. Webb sponsored my high school's chemistry team. This involved several months of extra-curricular study in preparation for the annual American Chemical Society High School Chemistry Test.

I did well on the test. The experience led me to see science and mathematics as a means to understand the universe based on verifiable evidence and rigorous study. This provided a basis for my learning how to think critically and an enduring compulsion to understand . . . everything. 

 On mineralogy club field trips, in addition to showing the group how to collect rocks, Mr. Webb encouraged me to sketch and to paint landscapes, and spoke well of my efforts.

... science and mathematics. This was the beginning of my learning how to think critically. 

[[Published in 1957, German Expressionist Painting was the first comprehensive study of one of the most pivotal movements in the art of this century. When it was written, however, German Expressionism seemed like an [[eccentric manifestation far removed from what was then considered the mainstream of modern art]] ][Published in 1957, German Expressionist Painting was the first comprehensive study of one of the most pivotal movements in the art of this century. When it was written, however, German Expressionism seemed like an [[eccentric manifestation far removed from what was then considered the mainstream of modern art]] 

Link to Sandbox 1

We are participant observers in the ongoing modernization, or globalization, of world culture. Artists must interrogate Modernism to successfully engage in artistic production. 

Modernism  sometimes refers to an artistic style or movement that began in Europe roughly in the last third of the 19th century. (Serge Guilbaut, How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art. Alfred Leslie's film The Cedar Bar.)

In Walter Benjamin: an Introduction to His Work and Thoughts (2004 in German, 2010 in English), Uwe Steiner gives a description of Benjamin’s discussion of Critique of Pure Reason, in which Benjamin quotes Kant to the effect, “ ... ‘that all speculative knowledge is limited to objects of experience,’ and that we can have knowledge of things only insofar as they present themselves as objects of sensory perception, that is, as tangible phenomena.”

We are participant observers in the ongoing modernization, or globalization, of world culture. Artists must interrogate Modernism to successfully engage in artistic production. 

Modernism  sometimes refers to an artistic style or movement that began in Europe roughly in the last third of the 19th century. (Serge Guilbaut, How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art. Alfred Leslie's film The Cedar Bar.)

Modernism also refers to the period of world history that began roughly from the late Middle Ages  and continues to the present. It was at the beginning of this epoch when the function of art ceased to be to depict religious themes under the patronage of the church and aristocracy and became the arena of artists and their bourgeois patrons. This major point of inflection was discussed by Hans Belting in  Hieronymus Bosch : Garden of Earthly Delights.)

William Carroll Bark’s Origins of the Medieval World and Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation – which were brought to my attention by Clarence Glacken and Paul Wheatley, respectively – provide a context for understanding what was happening during that time. 

Modernism also refers to the period of world history coinciding with the second millennium of the current era, roughly from the late Middle Ages to the present. William Carroll Bark’s Origins of the Medieval World and Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation – which were brought to my attention by Clarence Glacken and Paul Wheatley, respectively – provide a context for understanding what was happening during that time. 

A major point of inflection, discussed by art historian Hans Belting in several of his books, was when the function of art ceased to be to depict religious themes under the patronage of the church and aristocracy and became the arena of artists and their bourgeois patrons.

(The Germans and their Art, A Troublesome Relationship; Florence and Bagdad: Renaissance Art and Arab Science; Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, Hieronymus Bosch : Garden of Earthly Delights.)

Both of the above clusters of ideas and history have a bearing on the practice and understanding of art. I hope it is clear from the sense of the text which Modernism I am writing about. 

Modernism makes consideration of the formal aspects of composition necessary for the aesthetic appreciation  of works of art.

# To understand a work of art, the viewer must take into consideration the formal aspects of the composition of the piece in question.

# A viewer cannot understand a work of art without recognizing and considering  the formal aspects of its composition.

 The canvas to the left was the starting point for the painting I finally completed. 

 FORMS   

Forms are Arbitrary  

Berkeley art majors were required to take, among other classes, Line and Form, and Form and Color. An objective of these courses was to enable students to  understand that a form has a distinctively visual function, most easily apprehended in compositional terms with respect to its relationships or interactions with other forms, lines, and with color. Forms do not necessarily convey meaning or posses content.

November 26, 2022

third paragraph to go on first Painting page, Chunk  id:#25

A form can manifest, or represent, shape, or space. It can have color, either enclosed in it, or as in the open color of Raoul Dufy, a form encompassed by a line might be one form, and an area of open color partially occupying the delineated form might constitute a separate form, overlapping the outlined form, resulting in a complex intersection between two forms – one defined by an outline – the other defined by an area of color.

EDGEWATER  I am a member of the Edgewater Gallery, an artists’ cooperative in Fort Bragg, California. 

Description of the gallery, photos, 

Making a Painting (from painting2 frame 84)

It began with an encounter with a birch and spruce bog in the taiga near the University of Alaska's Large Animal Research Lab in Fairbanks. 

	I took several cellphone snapshots of the bog, and printed a copy of one of the photos.
I made sketches of that image, and a small painting based on it. I then began a larger version of the painting. Each iteration involved rearranging and simplifying the paintings.

Making a Painting

It began with an encounter with a birch and spruce bog in the taiga near the University of Alaska's Large Animal Research Lab in Fairbanks. I took several cellphone snapshots of the bog, and printed a copy of one of the photos.   I made sketches of that image, and a small painting based on it. I then began a larger version of the painting. Each iteration involved rearranging and simplifying the paintings.

Making Another Painting

          x         Photo # 1  Sent via email

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[Photo of painting (either completed or in progress]

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This painting got its start from a photograph of the riparian woodland across the road from my house. Green Valley Creek flows past the house out to the Russian River, about two or three hundred yards from where the photograph was taken.

                       x                                                                      x

sketch of motif

                                                   Photo #2

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                                                                      5/6/2023