The NebrosVon
Tuesday, Jon. M, 196
Of Monkeys and Machines
Pooe 2
Do You Really Understand Modern Art?
Here's the 'Why Behind Abstract Painting
By JAMES A JOHNSTON
" 'Who the hell wiped their brushes on this
Tag?" is a time-worn comment that I bear
frequently ringing through the Morrill BaH
Art Galleries along with such brilliant and
knowing remarks as; 'l could do that. My
five-year-old boy oooM (do that. Who the bell
did this, monkey ?" or "Goddam, they must
have a machine tup here.'" These comments
Art instead of more staffed elephants and 'bears,
the coDection, 'but by the abstracts.
For a year and a half of my college career
in Fine Arts I have been employed as a mem
ber of the University Art Gallery staff. In that
period I have heard these trite comments
JiteraHy hundreds of times. Some of them are
(merely casual comments made between vis
itors to the Art galleries, And some are obvi
ously vindictive remarks intended to he heard
fby Any of the staff members within range of
the loudmouths 'who made tinera. The latter
we shall ignore, as they Are probably beyond
hope, judging from their usual Appearance
which gives me the impression that aD life
tmeans to them Ss sex, A bottle of hear, And
digging Pitches eight hours a -day. Why they
snd up in the galleries At aH as open to 'ques
tion. 1 presume that lit lis because, when they
mm out of stuffed (elephants And hears on the
first floor And basement of the museum to Hook
At, they wander up to the second And third
ifloors of the galleries out of curiosity, pos
sibly .experiencing Acute (disappointment At tend
ing nothing more than sloppy old contemporary
Art instead of more stuffed elephants An dbears.
But I 'digress During any first weeks in the
galleries these taunts used to irritate me, hut on
ly 'because 9 was involved with the visual Arts.
I 'eventually became as hardened as the other
members of the staff. One cannot Assume An At
titude 'Of snobbery because (everyone does mot
share 'his linterests, or Hook oown on Anyone be
cause he knows nothing of the technical aspects
of this 'particular interest. No one knows some
thing about everything. This is why 'Socrates
was considered the wisest man by his contempo
raries, :because he was aware that he really
knew very little considering the infinite Iknowl
edge there is to be found in the luniverse. Now,
when 3 hear these comments by the uneducated
i(3 shall use this term to (refer to those Hacking
knowledge of the visual Arts)., 3 no longer ieel a
resentful anger- but rather that the parson who
speaks them is missing, And probably wiD never
experience an intergral part of life. Ut is 'quite
possible, however, that ;he could mot 'care less.
Whether he knows it or not though, art has been
An important part of human existence ever since
tman lived in caves, And its study can be excit- .
ing.
Modem art today is esoteric. 5It is Jor 'the Jew,
mot ior the many, but it could be tor everyone,
as Art has been through centuries, up until the
latter part of the Tiineteenth. Objections made to
Abstract works by those interested, or 'uninter
ested, in Art, Are made only because they lack
knowledge, and fcheref ore do not understand the
"why" of modern Art. It 'is not iblficult to under
stand. Art today, as it has Always been, is nothing
more than a reflection of the times tin which
'W(fflWi:-: PMW''P"'
V
"Walk 3b sfbe Poppes,' y Theodore Staauos,
from the F. M. Hall CoHectioM, CMversKy Art
(Galleries. ((Photo by Dave SiBman)
men have lived. As has been mentkmed prevl
ousTy' Art has been (important since the Stone
Age, a reflection of that time. The cave dweller
painted crude images of bison And mammoths
on the walls of 'his cave and proceed to throw
stone axes And spears At the images an the
superstitious belief that this would weaken the
living animal and so, Aid him in his hunt the
next day. Evidence of these rituals has been
discovered in the caves of Xascaux in France,
inhabited 30,000 years ago. Paintings made
15,000 years ago have been (discovered in the
cave of Altamira in Spain, and the cave of Font
o (Gaume in France. The paintings (discovered
in the pyramid tombs of Egypt constructed
around 2700 B.C. also (reflected a way of life,
as did Roman and (Greek art, and the Art of the
Middle Ages, the Byzantine, Romanesque and
(Gothic eras, in which the emphasis in art was
on religious and Biblical themes.
During the Middle Ages very few people were
educated, most were illiterate, and what stones
they could mot read in the Bible, they could see
in the stone sculpture and painted murals of the
Romanesque basilicas and the Gothic cathed
rals. The stone gargoyles, 'grootesques and
monsters that started "down at the Medieval
man from the high buttresses and cornices of
the (Gothic structure of Notre Dame de Paris re
minded him of the late that awaited him in hell
should he depart (from the paths of righteous
The Renaissance witnessed the rebirth of
religious art and a surge of church building and
decoration. And so it evolved up to the present.
(Contemporary art then is a (reflection of the
times in which we li ve chaotic turbulent times
m-fth tthe thunder of possible oudiear anxuhil&&o
(constantly cracking in our tears, I think most of
its fed that there might be no (tomorrow, bat be
cause most (Of ins still have a certaa amount
of hope, we de sot become beatnis, become
Dotmple&e3y nihilistic, but sne prompted onSy (to
Hive at a greater rate of speed since the majority
of as still have an inherent desire to accomplish
something and a feeling (that there is little (time
in which to oe it. But we stfll want to (do it
(regardless of what the (future anight be.
This thought is (quite apparent in tthe work of
the Americas faction' painters, tthe abstract
expressionists, Jackson Pollock, Sor example.
With whom everyone should be as familiar with
as Pa blo Picasso. Pollock r&Qed out Standard
six-yard lengths of canvas on tthe Boar f his
stadia and Hike a maniac dribbled seroly,
vibrating, splotchy lines from the end of a stick
or brush dipped in Jjalkm buckets of house paint.
Be lived at such an accelerated pace that he
kiDed himself about Sour years ago when his car
skidded off a road into a tree as a result ol ex
cessive speed.
The tunedocated win soofj at Jackson Pollock's
work as ah of a charlatan, and cannot compre
hend why some people would be wining to spend
thousands of -dollars Jar an original. The smeda
cated person is (the victim of a traditional con
cept that the subject of a painting should "look
(real;'' (that an orange in still life should bear
some (resemblance to an orange, that a (flower
should look like a (Bower,, and that a Ifigrare study
should Hook human, (that am abstractionist as an
excuse (for mot having the ability to draw or
paint objectively. Hardly true. Some f Pi
casso's prints, (drawings, and paintings are al
most classic in (their proportions and beautifully
(done, but he is renowned (for his isometric,
most classic in t h e a r proportions and beauti
tf uBy done, but heisir!nowd for bis ge-
tfriease See Page S)
The Daily Nehraskan
MAGAZINE ISSUE '
Tol. 74, J. SS Tuesday, Jan. K, IK1
OF MONKEYS AND MACHINES I
By James A. Johnstoo , . .. .Page Two I
AN EVENING OF JAZZ
By James Neil SAacDonald Page Three
FEDEKXCO GARCIA IX3RCA
Ey Joceyn W. Earrowes ... Page Four
PATRICK HORSBRUGH,
A Profile
By Carroll Kraus -Page Five
MUSIC: POPULAR AND OTHER- I
WISE
Ey Roper H. 'SLidmore ... Page Six
COVER PFGRAPH
By Doug McCartney
