Art and Pignoli Cookies

L and I went off to see Big Eyes last night. Dreadful Tim Burton movie about a fascinating footnote in 20th century art. The Keane saga is intriguing, plus that bug-eyed kiddy aesthetic is intimately connected to my childhood memories, the scent of the madeleine as it were. Those Keane paintings were so-o-o ubiquitous when I was a kid.

Story in brief: Unworldly woman obsessed with painting strange flat portraits of children with buggy eyes marries guy with artistic pretensions of his own. Guy manipulates woman into giving up authorship of paintings, claims them as his own, and goes on to promote the into a wildly successful brand. Woman eventually tires of dissemblage, claims bug-eyed children as her own. Paint-off in a Honolulu courtroom. Woman wins.

The movie seems to be positioning itself, perhaps, as a feminist polemic of sorts. It’s hard to tell. The movie is so obviously bored with itself.

The questions raised by the Keane case in real life are infinitely more interesting.

First and most important question: What is art?

Simple answer: Art is a commodity whose value is assigned by a handful of critics, curators, museum board members, gallery owners and other people I’m leaving out because I don’t really understand the art supply chain all that well.

Art is not the unadorned passion of the artist driven by inner voices.

Never has been.

That’s a kind of bizarre romantic notion. I don’t know that notion’s historical antecedents, but I’m sure they’re fairly recent. Possibly 17th century.

This is not to say that art isn’t an individual reflection of style. I think one thing that all art has in common is that if you’ve studied it even a little bit so that you know what to look for – hey! I took an art history class 30 years ago at UC Berkeley! – you can immediately tell either who painted it or what school it’s from.

For much of human history, from the Lascaux caves to the Sistine Chapel ceilings, art was mainly backed by religious consortiums. (That took a hit when Islam decided to eschew representational art.) Some time in the 17th century, still lives broke away from religious allegory and became more of a free-form genre. The earliest landscapes both in China and in Rome depicted imaginary panoramas, no doubt backdrops for myths. I’m not aware of any landscape paintings that survive from ancient Greece.

The ruins of Pompeii show that the Romans were pioneers at putting art to the service of commerce. Presumably, portraiture, too, evolved as a form of marketing – powerful people wanting less powerful people to see what they looked like.

Is art the same thing as interior decorating?

No! Just because you like the look of something on your wall doesn’t make it art.

Is art the same thing as illustration?

Well, this one I always strike out on. Frankly, I don’t see a difference between illustration and art, although I’m assured by people who know far more on the subject than I do that there is one. I suppose if one were fishing, one might say that illustration is meant to be a representational depiction while art camouflages the artist’s editorial intent somehow, his/her thoughts on a subject. But surely this analysis falls apart the first time one looks at the great advertising illustrations of the 1920s.

Do you have to like something personally to recognize it as art?

No!

Are Keanes ”art?”

Yes! Because they’re distinctive, and because people collect them. Tim Burton collects them! Presumably this is what gave him the idea for making this really banal and irritating movie. I fully expect a Keane to take its place next to Picasso’s Boy Leading a Horse in MOMA some time in the next 25 years.


Is Thomas Kincaide “art?”

Hmmmmm… This one is more difficult. In the end, though, I’d have to say, “Yes.” That damning label “kitsch” tends to expire after a certain amount of time. Yesterday’s kitsch are tomorrow’s collectibles – and if something is collected, it becomes a commodity. Plus Kincaide’s style is unmistakable – Those cozy buildings. Those cozy filtered light sources. Also – true factoid – Kincaide always signed his paintings and lithographs with a drop or two of his own blood! So there’s DNA evidence. It’ll take quite a bit longer for Kincaide to make it into MOMA unless some name brand director tries to revive his career with a bio-pic, and I don’t see that happening.

Yes, yes – I said “his” career! There’s nothing about the Kincaide story that would appeal to a female director, and actually, I suspect the Kincaide story is too scary for most male directors: It’s essentially the Keane story except that Kincaide was allowed to take credit for his work. But, he, too, was locked in the attic by a marketing genius spouse and forced to create. Eventually, Kincaide became an alcoholic – so did Margaret Keane, by the way; though Burton shows her hitting the sauce hard, he doesn’t really portray this negatively. Kincaide's alcoholism killed him.

I’d say it will take Kincaide 75 years to make it into MOMA. Maybe a century.

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Afterwards, L and I went off to Foster’s and had a jolly repast in Dickensian surroundings – scrumptious scallops and fried clams and shrimp scampi and charbroiled hamburgers! Plus almond paste pignoli cookies back at the casa while L amused me by torturing the cats with her bizarre disco toy car.

Life, she is good.