I knew de Kooning as a great modern painter, and I did like his paintings when I saw them in museums. But this book revealed to me the anguish of being an artist, the angst of finding yourself in the studio in front of a white canvas and of having to create something out of nothing, and the effect this angst has on an artist's life.
This stress almost destroyed de Kooning, through alcoholism.
The book goes beyond this however. It is an account, not only of a great painter's life, but also of New York and the art scene after the second world war, the time when de Kooning finally rised from obscurity and when New York supplanted Paris as the place where new art was being created.
He sailed to New York from Rotterdam (where he was born) in 1926 at the age of 22, paying his way by working as a cook on board. He had a classic art education as a draughtsman and a craftsman at the Rotterdam Academy of Arts, and it served him well. But, in spite of his European roots and his traditional education as an artist, he truly was, as the title of the book suggests, an "American Master", inventing a new art movement in New York in the 40s (he was one of the founders of what is called "abstract expressionism") and constantly reinventing himself, and challenging himself to launch new experiments in painting.
He exploded onto the scene with a revolutionary painting in 1950, titled Excavation.
This was received at the time as a masterpiece of abstract painting, but it was, for de Kooning, the result of a slow evolution through a long struggle trying to represent the human body by breaking it apart. It was purchased by the Art Institute of Chicago, where it is still now on display.
Then, instead of resting on his laurels and exploiting that line of painting, he started a struggle that lasted years in his studio, trying to represent Woman as a Goddess or a Monster, the woman with teeth in her vagina, who destroys manhood. The book reveals that it was a very personal odyssey for de Kooning, who had a difficult relationship with his wife, a very independent woman pursuing her own artistic ambitions, in spite of the fact that she always considered her husband to be a genius and promoted his art aggressively (although for her own agrandisement). The result was Woman I (followed by sequels Woman II, III, etc. and numerous drawings on the same subject). This was very much derided by the art critics who considered abstract, non-representational, art as the only valid expression for 20th century painting. It is on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and I just had to go see it a few trips back.
The book is just as much about New York as it is about de Kooning and Modern Art, and it is an absolute pleasure to read. After the second world war, when the United States stood as the victor and the super-power who vanquished the forces of evil in Germany and Japan, New York burst onto the scene as the pre-eminent center where new art was being invented by de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko and many others.
But it is not only modern painting that flourished at the time in New York. It was also Jazz music, another quintessentially American art form, and the book touches on that too. De Kooning was a Jazz lover, and a great admirer of Miles Davis, a rising star in the 1940s and 1950s, who reigned supreme in the Jazz world until the 70s and 80s.
There is a wonderful statement in the book that de Kooning "bended" colours, just as Miles "bended" notes, rather than just playing them. It was their common signature, one of unbounded creativity and genius.
No comments:
Post a Comment