Artworks that opened up new ways of experiencing the world
Sometimes a painting or a sculpture breaks through your conscious mind and leaves an impression that last for years, perhaps even a lifetime. I’ve chosen five paintings that had that effect on me and ultimately changed the way I look at art. Each painting has its own special qualities, but what they all have in common is that they opened my eyes to what art can be: not simply pictures but new possible ways of experiencing the world.
Twittering Machine by Paul Klee (1922)
A personal journey to the Paris of the Impressionist master
It was on a sunny, blustery day in spring when I visited Paris for the first time. I was 19-years-old and not long out of college. At that time in my life, my intention was to go to university to study art and become a painter, but I was having doubts over the matter. I didn’t know if was the right path for me, so I decided to put things on hold for a year and see what else was out there.
I got myself a job in a supermarket and, after several months of stacking potatoes and cabbages along…
Five of the best duration-based artworks
Claude Monet’s Seasonal Snapshots
The French Impressionist painter Claude Monet developed a practice of painting in series, choosing a single subject and returning to it over and over again. He took his time. The benefit of his approach was the insight of seeing different light effects upon the same subject as weather and lighting conditions altered.
A field of haystacks belonging to Monet’s neighbour, a farmer by the name of Monsieur Quéruel, became one such subject. Monet painted 25 versions of these haystacks over the course of a summer, winter and into the following spring of 1890–91.
Hints for reading symbolism in paintings, from mirrors to arrows
Learning to read paintings often begins with deciphering the subject matter, and to do that, it can help to have a grounding in some of the more common symbols found in art. Whilst there are many hundreds of subjects and associated symbols, I’ve chosen three of the most common to offer as a first-principles guide to reading symbolism in art.
Mirrors
The symbolic meaning of mirrors in art is wonderfully ambivalent. …
A monumental fresco that explores medieval beliefs in death and the afterlife
The Camposanto in Pisa, Italy, is a fascinating place. Whilst so much attention is given to the famous “Leaning Tower”, only a short distance away is one of the most beautiful cemeteries in all of the world.
The beginnings of the cemetery are auspicious. “Campo Santo” can be literally translated as “holy field” after a shipload of sacred soil from Calvary, or Golgotha — the site of Jesus’ crucifixion — was brought back to Pisa and used as the foundation earth for the cemetery. …
An exploration of missing pieces and lost memories
I recently took down a picture that had been hanging on my study wall for years. The space left behind was a subtle square where the wall had faded. It was, I realised, an impression of absence.
This negative space also had the quality of being “discovered”, something dug-up, revealed beneath something else. Sunlight had bleached the wall by subtle degrees, a change that went unnoticed until the picture was removed, leaving a lingering echo of the vanished item.
The ghosts of negative spaces
A similar absence is unearthed when a piece of furniture that has occupied the same spot for years is one day…
Ideas for sustainable success as a writer
What’s your strategy for writing over the long-term? Are you waiting for a post to go viral and suddenly thrust you into the spotlight? Or are you hoping to grind out an article a day, seven days a week for the rest of your life?
Or do you have a more surefooted way of forging your writing career, one that relies less on chance and unsustainable writing habits?
How things have gone for me so far
I don’t want to claim I have all the answers — as much as anyone else, I’m still finding my way — but I do want to share some of observations I’ve…
Recommended reading in the history of art, photography and architecture
On Photography by Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag published On Photography in 1977 after the work originally appeared as a series of essays in the New York Review of Books. The work is a critique of photography as a means of recording social history, war and travel.
What I love about this book is how, from the very first page, it poses a challenge to the reader. Whatever we may think about photography as a means of evidencing fact, certifying experience or documenting human history, Sontag systematically probes and questions.
Sontag also has a great facility with language. Throughout the text, she has the ability to…
The remarkable endurance art of Tehching Hsieh
On 29 September 1978, the performance artist Tehching Hsieh submitted himself to be locked inside a wooden cage for a whole year. The cage contained only a wash basin, a bucket and a single bed, and had more than a passing resemblance to a prison cell. He would not leave the cage for the next twelve months.
The submission to confinement was not just physical. The artist also relinquished any mental activity too, forbidding himself to read, write, listen to radio or watch TV. He even disqualified himself from talking — but then there was nobody else to talk to…
It’s like meeting up with old friends
Whenever I go to London, I almost always find myself walking into the National Gallery. Perhaps it’s because some of my earliest connections with art were made there, that I find it almost impossible not to return whenever I am nearby. The museum sits at the top of Trafalgar Square with its temple-like columns and grand portico entrance, achieving a sort of permanence that so much of modern life lacks. Perhaps that is part of the attraction too.
Here, I’ve chosen three works that I always try to catch up with, of the many thousands that make up the gallery’s…
