Art as intuitive conundrum

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Content ART AS INTUITIVE CONUNDRUM
by
Evona Loggia
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(FINE ARTS)
August 2002
Copyright 2002 Evona Loggia
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UMI Number: 1414909
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UNIVERSITY O F S O U T H E R N CALIFORNIA
T H E G R A D U A T E S C H O O L
U N IV E R S IT Y PA R K
LO S A N G E L E S , C A L IF O R N IA 90007
This thesis, written by
__________
under the direction of h&.C....Thesis Comm ittee,
and approved by all its members, has been pre
sented to and accepted by the Dean of The
Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Mqs'U t o f /r//?e
Date.
S COMMITTEE
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract Page iii
Introduction 1
Academic Knowledge 2
Appropriation and Assimilation 9
Senses via Experiences and Arcane Tableaux 14
Conclusion 18
Works Cited 21
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ABSTRACT
This paper’s objective is to place artmaking as intuitive. The definition of
intuition has three elements: knowledge gleaned from academic sources; images
appropriated and assimilated from historical sources; and personal images obtained
through one’s own filter of perceptions. Personal images are experienced through the
physical senses and by accessing the arcane tableaux within one’s mind. All three of
these elements fuel intuitive artmaking and work concurrently and harmoniously.
Linked with intuition is the term conundrum to denote art as a conjectural
riddle without an apparent answer. Part of the power of paintings is their mystery and
mastery of not telling. This aspect of conundrum enables paintings to retain the
attention of the viewer and allows both viewer and painting to reveal subtleties and
complexities slowly over time.
Ill
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Art as Intuitive Conundrum
A thick tendinous rope connects me into the past: The past of my childhood,
the past of my learned art history and all the past people, books and experiences that
I have appropriated and assimilated. My art is so linked and wrapped into all of those
things that it is what I call intuitive conundrum.
In this paper, I will take the reader through a list of three ways in which I
define intuition, then explain how it affects the way I create things. These three
elements are: Academic Knowledge; Appropriations and Assimilations; and the
Senses via Experiences and Arcane Tableaux. Intuition, to me, owes its definition of
“things perceived without reasoning” to a lull interior perception of these elements
combined. I function, most directly and best, when utilizing that intuition. I do not
particularly want to understand everything completely. Leave a dose of mystery,
please, because I enjoy a good riddle that points to open, not ended, conjecture.
Most recently, my work has taken on a newfound fullness, a richness of
color, textures and a change of imagery. I had been working with very light graphite
on translucent paper. The images within most of my past work were singular figures
overlaid on either a highly decorative background or none at all. Now, I have
extended beyond this singularity by utilizing repetition, cutting the full figure into
segments, overlapping areas, separating into diagonals and using the box and niche
to enclose further narrative elements within my paintings. Rather than a conscious
decision of progression from one way of working to another, this transformation has
taken place through the following intuition.
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Academic Knowledge
A shrug of the shoulder. Standing with crossed arms. A look to the side. A
hand behind an ear, or an index finger to the mouth. The language of the body. I
have always been fascinated with hand gestures, body stances, facial expressions and
symbols, both historical and modem. These four elements come up again and again
in my work. Through art, narrative is told and understood at some level without
reading any text attached to it. My research into the hand gestures of Giotto’s
frescoes in the Arena Chapel is one example of extended study into an area of
interest for me. Specifically, these gestures are important because my current work
surrounds appropriating and recontextualizing the meanings of the historical
personifications of the Virtues and Vices, which are painted at the bottom tier of
Giotto’s Arena chapel.
Hand gestures were understood as a language in images during previous eras
where most of the population did not have the opportunity to learn letter symbols. In
Giotto’s day, certain gestures conjured formal, albeit somewhat ambiguous,
meanings in paintings. My favorites are the speaking hand, the gesture of incapacity,
crossed hands, expulsion and grasping the wrist. I will go through each one of these
and explain how I have interpreted them to mean certain things within my definition
of art making as intuitive conundrum.
The speaking hand was utilized mostly in the Annunciation scenes depicted
in religious iconography. The gesture consisted of two fingers (the index and the
middle) raised with the thumb covering and holding back the ring and the small
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finger. This is somewhat like the 1960’s peace sign gesture with the exception that
the two upright fingers are slightly curved. This hand position, in Giotto’s time, was
understood to mean the person using this gesture was actually speaking. I just love
this little piece of information and the actual words surrounding it, the speaking
hand.
Since its meaning was simple and it was heavily used, but not exclusively, in
the Annunciation scenes, the most interesting gesture was not the speaking hand but
the gestures of the receiver of the news, Mary. Mary could receive this news,
according to Michael Baxandall’s Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century
Italy, through five different gestures formally named: Conturbatio - Disquiet;
Cogitatio - Reflection; Interrogate - Inquiry; Humiliatio - Submission and Meritatio
- Merit (Baxandall 51). To explain how these ideas were represented visually
through gestures would, of course, take another paper but I will relate to you two
historical reactions to the Conturbatio stance.
The first reaction comes from Leonardo da Vinci as a critique to Botticelli’s
Conturbatio Annunciation scene in 1490: “Some days ago I saw the picture of an
angel, who, in making the Annunciation, seemed to be trying to chase Mary out of
her room, with movements showing the sort of attack one might make on some hated
enemy; and Mary, as if desperate, seems to be trying to throw herself out of the
window. Do not fall into errors like these” (Baxandall 56). The second reaction
comes from Giorgio Vasari praising Giotto on his Conturbatio stance of another
Annunciation: “Where he (Giotto) did many things which were held to be beautiful,
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but especially an Annunciation, because in this work he vividly expressed the fright
and dread with which Gabriel’s greeting fill the Virgin Mary. Full of the greatest
fear, She seems as if She wishes to run away” (Vasari 16). Two reactions: one
critique and one a praising. Even then, reactions split and differ. The Conturbatio
stances’ meaning slipping constantly with the viewer. At this point, a visual of the
Conturbatio stance should be pretty firm in your head. But, if not, Mary stands with
both hands held up in front of her body, palms outward with the torso twisting in
both a movement of wanting to stay and the desire to flee.
The next gesture is one of incapacitation and consists of one hand, the right
or the left, clasping the other at the joint or at the forearm, the back of the hand
pointing outward with both hands hanging down as if weighted. Giotto used this
hand gesture along with the Conturbatio stance I just explained. Brilliantly
combining these two gestures within the context of the Massacre of the Innocents
Scene he shows conflict, mostly a psychological conflict within the figure itself. The
incapacity gesture however, further registered unease, perplexity, and utter
powerlessness. A gesture of utter incapacity, the holding of one hand with another,
states that one is being asked to be a witness to a horrific scene and is incapable of
movement (Barasch 90). Giotto did not invent this gesture of course; he utilized it
from his firm academic knowledge in a poetically intuitive way. He was educated
enough to know that in the art of earlier centuries it had been used to show suffering
and the inability to prevent the advent of doom. As an artist, Giotto powerfully used
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this visual tool. He allows his viewers to experience extreme psychological conflict
through a representation of it.
The third gesture is crossed hands on the chest. The history of this gesture
stems from Egyptian ftmerary art as the first concrete visual depiction of it. It
consists of the crossing, the intersection, the covering of one angled arm with another
in an opposite direction. Consequently, the study surrounding this gesture is “one of
questionable continuity” (Barasch 74) and in Giotto and the Language o f Gesture,
Moshe Barasch goes through the following possibilities of the signification of this
gesture. They are: ardour; a representation of the cross; posture of the Christian dead;
humility; a gesture that goes beyond humility; reenactment of the story of the cross;
submission; adoration; reverence; a gesture to receive the Eucharist; and finally, a
gesture expressing a request that sacrifice be accepted. I especially like this gesture
because of the ambiguity of what it signifies. Context matters, temporality matters,
causality matters and space matters with the reading of this gesture. And we must try
to place the gesture into some sense.
As Barasch states, “Giotto intuitively understood the gist of all these
traditions. But what can we learn from these traditions to help us grasp what the
hands crossed on the chest mean in Giotto’s work?’ He, the author, goes on and
explains his understanding of the gesture as ultimately meaning in Giotto’s work to
be an expression of true faith (82). I completely disagree but the author has that
option of placing his spin on it from a modem point of view and collapsing it with
his academic knowledge. I also work from this premise.
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Before I move on to the last two gestures, I would like to summarize the first
three gestures and state the reasons for my bringing them up in this academic
knowledge portion of my paper. The first gesture was the speaking hand and it
relates to me the idea of formal expressions via the hands or the face without need
for verbalization or text supports. The second hand gesture was incapacitation and it
symbolizes to me the artist’s ability to utilize historical imagery and gestures and
their multivalence to allow the viewer to experience an emotion through a
representation. The third gesture, the crossing of the hands, denotes to me that
meanings change, slip into new ones and are effaced. As Duchamp more eloquently
is quoted later in this paper, it also speaks of the notion of the intersection and warns
against trying too hard to control what is said about your art and the precariousness
of narrow outlooks. This is not to say be lazy in acquiring knowledge. No, just an
idea about not getting caught up in the drug of controlling what is said about your
work.
The last two gestures that I wish to quickly mention, the fourth and the fifth,
are the expulsion and the grasping of the wrist gestures. Very simply, the expulsion
is the fist in front of the body and is utilized in Giotto’s work to express anger and
dismissal in the scenes of the story of Christ Expelling the Merchants from the
Temple (Barasch 148). I equate this gesture as the dismissal of elements of my
education that I wish to denounce. An editing process, with slightly violent hues
attached. Satisfyingly getting rid of the many less than intelligent sources that one
must sift through. In other words, editing outrageously stupid remarks and bad
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scholarship. Finally, the grasping of the wrist, as one can imagine, is a precursor to
the handshake and gaze of the other. It is a gesture full of potential help and promise
(a bridge) along with a gaze of affirmed and acknowledged lies. It symbolizes to me
the academic knowledge that is helpful (never altogether true though) and meeting
the gaze of others to share, discuss, help and support along with softly lying and not
telling all until needed or desired. Slight hypocrisy within art and life, amusingly
acknowledged, is always edible, if not altogether tasty.
I return now to the basic source for my current work, the Virtues and Vices
personified and painted by Giotto in the Arena Chapel at Padua. These figures are
paired and are Hope/Despair, Charity/Envy, Faith/Idolatry, Temperance/Anger,
Fortitude/Inconstancy, and Prudence/Folly. These are to me, the most enigmatic of
all the images within the chapel. They were meant to be seen as imagery showing
opposite conditions. Historically, “The most important literary source for the contrast
between the Virtues and the Vices, seen as a continual struggle within the human
soul, is in the Psychopathic (literally ‘battle of the soul’) written by Prudentius at the
beginning of the fifth century)” (Basile 361). What else could one write with a name
like Prudentius? The pairings suggest the antinomies identified by this 5th century
author. I am interested in four of these personifications, three Vices -- Envy,
Inconstancy and Idolatry, and one Virtue — Hope.
This is where the term conundrum comes in and attaches itself to my art
making. I have completed some research on these personifications through another
venue, Francis Yates’ book on The Art o f Memory. These personifications connected
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with me in some way that is still uncertain so I researched a popular notion of
Giotto’s time that utilized them as loci for the art of memory. In an era of limited
printing and paper availability, if any, the memory was of extreme importance. The
art of remembering was taught and had certain techniques. Basically the idea was
that one would form a locus or location (usually associated with some architectural
element and a visual image) and on this “visual location in the brain” one would
attach an idea or notion to be remembered. The main source teaching the memory art
(Ad Herennium) from the year 86 - 82 B. C. stated some helpful hints at making the
ideas stick.
We ought, then, to set up images of a kind that can
adhere longest in memory. And we shall do so if we
establish similitudes as striking as possible; if we set
up images that are not many or vague but active
(imagines agentes); if we assign to them exceptional
beauty or singular ugliness; if we ornament some of
them, as with crowns or purple cloaks, so that the
similitude may be more distinct to us; or if we
somehow disfigure them, as by introducing one stained
with blood or soiled with mud or smeared with red
paint, so that its form is more striking, or by assigning
certain comic effect to our images, for that, too, will
ensure our remembering them more readily. The things
we easily remember when they are real we likewise
remember without difficulty when they are figments.
(Yates 10)
I love this quote because, of course, I attach my memories to the paintings I
create. Then, I efface and change the image within my loci for the next remembering
or painting as was taught then within this memory art. I also think that my
similitudes are beautiful or ugly or comic and hope that the viewer can receive
something out of the looking.
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But, I digress. However, that digression shows the way research can turn, join
and synthesize into a kind of intuitive tangential exploration that ends up, somehow,
in the painting without direct reference to it. As I research, I am thinking, looking,
digressing and exploring personal fascinations of what interests and grabs my mind.
By using academic research, I absorb the gleaned esoteric information and store it
for later use.
In this way, the information and paintings that I have researched become part
of a psychological puzzle that I place in particular “loci” and from which I can
access to create new representations. This segments into my next sub-definition of
the word intuition: Appropriation.
Appropriation and Assimilations
Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines the term appropriation as ‘To take
exclusive possession of;” “to set apart for or assign to a particular purpose or use;”
“to take or make use of without authority or right” (57). The Chamber’s Dictionary
of Etymology takes a more straightforward approach with the word appropriation. Its
meaning being, “to take as one’s own” (45).
Jacques Lacan certainly made a career out of this notion of appropriation and
even though several distinguished names could be referenced for this idea, Lacan is
my choice. He stated that there is no — and I am synopsizing here -- such thing as
intellectual private property. He takes an example and states that the autodidact owes
nothing to anyone not because he owes everything to himself but because he owes
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everything to everyone; therefore, how then can we accuse anyone of plagiarism?
(Jacobsen 2). Think about the idea that plagiarism does not exist — or as I think of it
as I do - We appropriate therefore we think.
After assimilating those ideas, let me say that I have always been an honest
up-front thief when it comes to art making. I have always “stolen” and “absorbed”
things as my own when it concerns just about anything that is intellectually
interesting. That is the paradox because what my mind has taken, what I have
allowed to be imprinted, what I did not want imprinted and still was, my information,
my knowledge, my experience comes from so many sources that I am stolen and a
total appropriation.
Many writings are total appropriations or “almost” without specific
authorship. For example, as I was researching for this series I went to a show at the
Getty called Devices of Wonder. I went because anything with the title de-vicing of
wonder appealed to me. As I looked at the catalog that was sold in the show I was
amazed that the first article was 115 pages and had attached to it 424 footnotes
(Stafford 142). I had to laugh because it probably would have been easier for the
author to say I am not the author I have nothing to say except from these sources.
Which, in my opinion, is basically true. This idea, of course, has been talked about
ad-nauseum during our era and each of us is ultimately a person of our time so I
bring it up.
As I’ve said, I am certainly not adverse to this idea and basically I embrace it.
I would never want to be in the position of being critiqued of not using intuition or
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not getting the gist of things but only “sharpening one comer of my mind,” as
Giorgio Vasari feels Paolo Uccello did much to the detriment of his person and
career. This quote from Vasari deals with his summarization of Uccello:
“Paolo Uccello would have been the most delightful
and inventive genius in the history of painting from
Giotto’s day to the present, if he had spent as much
time working on human figures and animals as he lost
on problems of perspective; for although these things
are ingenious and beautiful, anyone whose pursuit of
them is excessive wastes hour after hour, exhausts his
native abilities, and fills his mind with difficulties,
quite often turning a fertile and effortless talent into
one that is sterile and overworked; and anyone who
pays more attention to perspective than to human
figures achieves an arid style full of profiles, produced
by the desire to examine things in minute
detail...There is no doubt that anyone who does
violence to his nature with fanatical study may well
sharpen one comer of his mind, but nothing that he
creates will ever appear to have been done with the
natural ease and grace of those who place each brush
stroke in its proper place and, with moderation,
considerable intelligence, and good judgment, avoid
certain subtleties which soon encumber their works
with an overworked, difficult, arid, and ill-conceived
style which more readily moves those who observe
them to compassion than to wonder.” (74)
We have all seen work and artists that fall into this category — overworked,
deskilled, didactic “pieces” that we as viewers are constantly subjected to. One
comer of the mind too sharp and ultimately soporific. My point is that perhaps a
more rounded intuition based approach is needed.
Additionally, I included assimilation along with appropriation within my
definition of intuition because I acknowledge the naturalness of how we absorb and
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alter information to learn. To properly define assimilation, I again turned to
Merriam-Webster’s, which says: “to take in and appropriate as nourishment;”
“absorb into the system;” “to make similar,” (69) while Chamber’s Etymology
interprets the word as originating from the Latin term assimilatus, compare, make
similar, imitate (58). The process of absorption and “making similar” becomes so
ingrained that in accessing all of my appropriations and assimilations I call my
explanation of “I don’t know how I know this but...” as my brain synopsizing all of
my footnotes and, without being able to name a specific source, coming out with a
statement or visual that applies directly to the situation at hand. I work like this
constantly.
This way of working can create change via new interpretations by and from
appropriating then assimilating; in other words by “stealing”, absorbing and altering.
Furthermore, as each new generation does this, meanings evolve and hopefully allow
new ways of looking at ideas. This adds to my belief that readings and meanings of
artworks change within periods of every 30 to 40 years and then those “meanings”
will be researched and talked about from within another set of terms and conditions
of interest. This is not an original thought of mine but a synopsis of a quote from the
God of the Avant-Guard, our own indomitable Duchamp,
“I’m not so interested in art per se. It’s only one
occupation, and it hasn’t been my whole life, far from
it. You see, I’ve decided that art is a habit-forming
drug. That’s all it is, for the artist, for the collector, for
anybody connected with it. Art has absolutely no
existence as veracity, as truth. People always speak of
it with this great, religious reverence, but why should it
be so revered? It’s a drug, that’s all. The more I go on,
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the more I’m convinced of it. The onlooker is a
important as the artist. In spite of what the artist thinks
he is doing, something stays on that is completely
independent of what he intended, and that something is
grabbed by society - if he’s lucky. The artist himself
doesn’t count. Society just takes what it wants. The
work of art is always based of these two poles of the
maker and the onlooker, and the spark that comes from
this bi-polar action gives birth to something, like
electricity. But the artist shouldn’t concern himself
with this because it has nothing to do with him - it’s
the onlooker who has the last word. Fifty years later
there will be another generation and another critical
language, an entirely different approach. No, the thing
to do is try to make a painting that will be alive in your
own lifetime. No painting has an active life of more
than thirty or forty years - that’s another little idea of
mine. I don’t care if it’s true....” (Tomkins 18)
As I stated earlier, Duchamp, in this quote, discusses change via new
interpretation, which also can be called appropriation and assimilation. Now I agree
with Duchamp, with reservations of course, up to the active life of a painting. A
painting can die, yes, but it can be resuscitated by just looking at it seriously and
writing about it seriously. Oh dear, what would all those art historians do if not remix
and recontextualize old imagery languages from Duchamp’s “dead” paintings. Me
too. I choose to make real again the old with my own conjecture and subjective
experience folded into available knowledge and study.
Some major influences within my current work are: 13th -14th century Giotto,
and as previously mentioned, specifically, his work in the Arena Chapel at Padua,
15th century Carlo Crivelli, 15th century Rogier Van der Weyden and 16th century
Agnolo Bronzino, among many others that I will not list here. Elements from all
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these artists appear, either directly appropriated or intuitively included via
assimilation within this series.
So, in summary: I appropriate, I assimilate, I am a total appropriation. There
is no such thing as private intellectual property. We appropriate, therefore we think.
Furthermore, authorship is questionable. Vasari warns against sharpening one comer
of the mind. Meanings change and will be read differently as time unfolds. I would
say that within this sub-definition of intuition, I conspire to be, as Lacan thinks he
was, an inspired and prodigious assimilator, open to many influences and quick to
grasp resemblances and analogies among diverse elements, historical and modem
(Jacobsen 2).
Although I have shown that appropriation and assimilations are quite, shall
we say, basic to being; the last inclusive set of terms that define intuition for me are
the senses, or sensing via experiences and arcane tableaux. By sensing, I mean
realization or the intelligent making sense of something that I am allowing to slowly
materialize in order to place it in a painting. I do this by accessing experiences and
the arcane (and not so arcane) tableaux that create my interior life. This feeling
initially stems from the many elements that make up a person, and includes how each
of us was taught, and how each of us chooses to interpret the world.
Senses via Experiences and Arcane Tableaux
Most of my memories, or moments, are tableau vivants where time stands
still and a memory is inscribed permanently into my whole being. Oh, I many glide
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over them later with distance or from just plain forgetfulness but initially my
imprinted experiences are viscerally felt and grafted onto my brain in a sometimes
meticulously beautiful way. I save these within lovely and simple frames that can be
mounted, unframed and altered within time. My arcane tableaux become in a way, a
private gallery within the mind. It is always of interest to me how they will appear in
the visual form of my paintings.
My interior self is an elusive, complex, rhythmic chain of events and of
persons, places and things. A complicated norm. The memories that comprise the self
are put into visual coherence while, at the same time, retaining mysterious qualities. I
access art history in the same way. I think of art history not as something stagnant
but as a place and resource of ideas and interpretations that are waiting to be perused
and then remixed to provide the support for the layers of materials, ideas and
psychological elements I place within my paintings. As Colin J. Bailey said of
Victoria Crowe, “there are sometimes in an artist’s oeuvre subconscious references
whose origin and raison d’etre are not always explicable or fully comprehended by
their author,” (Crowe 13) and “all of them, of course have personal associations,
though some, naturally are more intensely personal than others and are part of a
private rather than a universal iconography” (Crowe 27).
I create work that I have distilled from my experiences and those arcane
tableaux in the form of representational symbols that, with effort, can be accessible
to the interested viewer. Sometimes I intuitively feel that I am just reflecting the
multilayered allusiveness of how I interpret modernity.
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I was once told by another artist that emotion is “the horse’s ass of art.” I
remember widening my eyes then arcing my head backward in disbelief. I always
enjoy people that say “I feel” and who are referencing emotion. In life and in art.
This is because I feel that this term is another way of accessing intuition as I have
discussed in this paper. I feel is always based on something: knowledge, experiences,
tableaux, arcane references, etc. If artists desire to touch upon any, some or all of
these ideas through the medium of emotions without sentimentality then that is their
right. If an artist wishes to share held knowledge, or decides to share a partial or
whole experience, or if she/he relates life through a theatrical re-rendition of events,
or ends up relating an echo of a secret — and attaches it to emotion, it should be
honored. An emotional sharing via art of any of these elements is always preferable,
in my opinion, than to the didactic laying down of meaning. I do not wish to find
specific meanings or tell my viewers how to read my work, no, in fact, I conspire
against finding definitive answers and/or readings. Finding a definitive answer
denotes constriction. I enjoy art that feels and pulsates with layered mysteries;
layered mysteries that gain renewed power with each looking (Kirkpatrick 140).
Although as a painter, I work in a visual medium, the art of poetry plays an
integral part upon my senses. At different periods of my life, my favorite poets
change. There are times when I copy entire poems on translucent paper, and hang
them on my studio walls, in a sense turning them into visual works of art rather than
just auditory ones. It is in this way that their deeper meaning and spirit imbibes itself
upon my psyche and hence, upon my intuition.
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Enid Dame grasps the importance of the senses in her poem, “Riding the D-
Train.” In it, she describes an awareness of one’s surroundings and the necessity of
looking. She talks of taking in what’s around, and not just by the act of seeing, but
by emphasizing true looking on a personal level, which then instills itself upon the
brain.
Notice the rooftops
the wormeaten Brooklyn buildings.
Houses crawl by,
each with its private legend.
In one, a mother
is punishing her child
slowly, with great enjoyment.
In one, a daughter
is writing a novel
she can’t show to anyone.
Notice your fellow riders:
the Asian girl chewing a toothpick,
the boy drawing trees on his hand,
the man in a business suit
whose shoes don’t match.
Everything is important:
that thin girl, for instance,
in flowered dress, golden high heels.
How did her eyes get scarred?
Why is that old man crying?
Why does that woman carry
a cat in her pocketbook?
Don’t underestimate
any of it.
Anything you don’t see
will come back to haunt you. (16)
I will leave the Senses via Experiences and Arcane Tableaux with another poem; this
one being from Kathleen Raine. This poem not only gives us the old meaning of the
1 7
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senses by allowing us to touch, see, smell, taste, hear and feel through letter symbols,
but also explains so well how I experience moments, bursts of growth, death, denial
and ultimately renewal.
The Moment
Never, never again Of diverse shells Are waxing and
This moment, never Each with its variant waning
These slow ripples Arc or spiral The tall yellow iris
Across smooth water, Spun from a point Unfolds its corolla
Never again these In tone and semitone As primroses wither,
Clouds white and Of formal octave. Scrolls of fern
grey Unroll and midges
In sky sharp Here come soaring Dance for an hour
crystalline White gulls In the evening air,
Blue as the tern’s cry Leisurely wheeling The brown moth
Shrill in light air In air over islands From its pupa
Salt from the ocean, Sea pinks and salt emerges
Sweet from flowers. grass. And the lark’s bones
Gannet and eider Fall apart in the
Here coincide Curlew and grass.
The long histories cormorant
Of forms recurrent Each a differing The sun that rose
That meet at a point Pattern of ecstasy From the sea this
And part in a Recurring at nodes morning
moment, In an on-flowing Will never return,
The rapid waves current, For the broadcast
Of wind and water The perpetual light
And slower rhythm species, That brightens the
Of rock weathering Repeated, renewed leaves
And land sinking. By the will of joy And glances on
In eggs lodged safe water
In teeming pools On perilous ledges. Will travel tonight
The life cycle On its long journey
Of brown weed The sun that rises Out of the universe,
Is intersecting Upon one earth Never this sun,
The frequencies Sets on another. This world, and
Swiftly the flowers never
Again this watcher.
(Crowe 51)
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Conclusion
I like work that feels like a rebus and, in the best artworks, I try to place
myself or I try to find out where I fit into the picture, I like work that keeps secrets.
Part of the power of paintings is their mystery and the mastery of not telling. This
holding back enables them to retain the attention of the viewer and allows them to
reveal their subtleties and complexities slowly over time. New meanings come with
extended looking and, as the viewer changes, the imagery does too.
Many times I have looked at my earlier work and said to myself, “I do not
recognize that person any longer.” This wonderful attribute of age is beautiful to me.
It states things move. It states ideas and imprints can be held or released.
My paintings unfold slowly and their symbology often surprises me, the
author. Yes, I think and place each image within them in a very particular way but
without always fully, consciously comprehending why. However, in my work and in
viewing others, even if I cannot figure out or “get” the puzzle, I know that if I am
interested enough I will definitely mull it over. If I choose to give the image enough
time I even have the hope that perhaps, later, I can more fully understand something
that I did not understand before. And that is no small thing to ask of art.
In this paper, I have discussed the three elements that make up the intuition
that fuels my art: Academic Knowledge, Appropriations and Assimilations, and the
Senses via Experience and Arcane Tableaux. Each plays an individual role, and all
three work harmoniously.
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Intuition and Conundrum is a combination that is dynamic and full of
potential change. A pairing of two notions that originate from one context and
meaning and swoon into another. I have always placed my own definitions alongside
the definitions of ancient symbols that I feel connected to with that thick, tendinous
rope. This combination creates new meanings and leaves mysterious openings.
When it comes down to defining my work, I would like to insist that it
remain a conundrum - not as an element of annoyance but as a gift. A gift in the
sense that they, the viewers, can imprint their own views and perceptions upon the
image without being overshadowed by what mine are. In this paper, I have provided
the framework of information surrounding my imagery. Hopefully, this deepens the
understanding of my process and my take on things. The funny thing is, even though
I am the artist, and the ultimate creator of the work, my paintings remain a
conundrum even to me.
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Works Cited
Barasch, Moshe. Giotto and the Language o f Gesture. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1987.
Basile, Giuseppe. Giotto: The Arena Chapel Frescoes. London: Thames and
Hudson, 1993.
Baxandall, Michael. Painting & Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy. 2n d ed.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Borch-Jacobsen, Mikkel. Lacan: The Absolute Master. Trans. Douglas Brick.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991.
Chambers Dictionary o f Etymology. Ed. Robert K. Barnhart. New York: Chambers,
2000.
Crowe, Victoria and Michael Walton. Victoria Crowe: Painted Insights. Suffolk:
Antique Collectors’ Club, Ltd., 1988.
Dame, Enid. Anything You Don’ t See. Albuquerque: West End Press, 1992.
Gazda, Elaine K., ed. The Villa o f the Mysteries in Pompeii: Ancient Ritual, Modern
Muse. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000.
Merriam-Webster’ s Collegiate Dictionary. 10th ed. Springfield: Merriam-Webster,
Incorporated, 1993.
Stafford, Barbara Maria and Frances Terpak. Devices o f Wonder: From the World in
a Box to Images on a Screen. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2001.
Tomkins, Calvin. The Bride and the Bachelors: Five Masters o f the Avant-Garde.
New York: The Viking Press, 1968.
Vasari, Giorgio. The Lives o f the Artists. Trans. Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter
Bondanella. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Yates, Frances A. The Art o f Memory. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1966.
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Asset Metadata

Creator Loggia, Evona Lynae (author)

Core Title Art as intuitive conundrum

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

School Graduate School

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Fine Arts

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Art History,Fine Arts,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Advisor Rizk, Ron (committee chair), Lazzari, Margaret R. (committee member), Weisberg, Ruth (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-303006

Unique identifier UC11336914

Identifier 1414909.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-303006 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 1414909.pdf

Dmrecord 303006

Document Type Thesis

Rights Loggia, Evona Lynae

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses