Mario Naves considers the ongoing relevance and importance of observational drawing.
Naves notes that "while this grounding [in life drawing] may be obvious in the case of representational artists, with abstract artists the connection can be slippery. It is, nonetheless, there. If we ask that a painting or sculpture be an autonomous object–a thing with its own inherent vitality–it must also have some connection with the world it occupies. If we ask that a painter create a convincing illusion of a world, then it is necessary to have had an encounter with actual objects and actual space. The art critic Robert Hughes wrote that “the philosophical beauty of Mondrian’s squares and grids begins with the empirical beauty of his apple trees.” Anyone who attended the great Mondrian retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art can attest to the truth of this statement. What we learn from Mondrian is that drawing from life can inform abstract art just as it can with figurative art. It can serve as a scaffolding for art which veers away from representation. Drawing is an armature that can be overt and covert."
[VIDEO] Robin Greenwood and curator Nicholas Cullinan engage in a lively debate on the juxtaposition of works Cy Twombly and Nicolas Poussin while on a private tour of the exhibitionTwombly and Poussin: Arcadian Painters. The exhibition is on view at the Dulwich Picture Gallery through September 25, 2011.
In his detailed review Foster writes that although "The show is not without its faults ... there are some unlikely and provocative juxtapositions that, on reflection, are remarkably effective. The pairing of Poussin's preparatory study for Joshua's Victory over the Amonites - a dense and chaotic tangle of surging bodies - with two of Twombly's untitled pieces of frenzied, illegible scrawl, works to bring out the frantic energy of the former, and emphasises the senselessness and violence in the latter.
In the video above, curator Nicholas Cullinan narrates a first look at the exhibition Twombly and Poussin: Arcadian Painters on view at the Dulwich Picture Gallery from June 29 - September 25, 2011.
