Dear Learners,
Doc writes,
>Artists share some things in common.
I think there are a few people reading this list who are interested,
perhaps even intrigued by the possibilities latent in the relationship of
creative fine arts to LO and organisational life. Though my great passion
is for the visual arts and painting in particular I hope I have refrained
from imposing that small part of our common culture and historical
inheritance to a bare minimum and referring when I need to artist we might
all be familiar with, I mean artists Michelangelo, da Vinci and Vincent
van Gogh. I suppose that Marcel Duchamp in an exception, though he is in
fact the progenitor of nearly all that today is called avant garde.
Anyhow! From Senge to authors like Lissack and less well know
personalities there is the realisation that in the homely, limited, quiet
sort of understated way;-) artists and painters in particular faced up to
many of the challenges you all feel yourselves to face over a hundred
years ago. I will not bore you with the references here.
I want to share with you a letter that Matisse wrote about a painting he
had lived with for most of his productive life.
Nice, 10th November 1936
Yesterday I consigned to your shipper Cezanne's Baigneuse (Bathers). I saw
the picture carefully packed and it was supposed to leave that very evening
for the Petit Palais. (Paris)
Allow me to tell you that this picture is of the first importance in the work
of Cezanne because it is a very solid, a very complete realization of a
composition that he carefully studied in several canvases, which, now in
important collections, are only the studies that culminated in the present
work.
In the thirty seven years I have owned this canvas, I have come to know it
quite well, I hope, though not entirely; it has sustained me morally in
critical moments of my venture as an artist; I have drawn from it my faith
and my perseverance; for this reason allow me to request that it be placed so
that it might be seen to its best advantage. For this it needs both light and
perspective. It is rich in colour and surface, and seen at a distance it is
possible to appreciate the sweep of its lines and the exceptional sobriety of
its relationships.
I know that I do not have to tell you this, but nevertheless I think it is my
duty to do so; please accept these remarks as excusable testimony of my
admiration for this work which has grown increasingly greater ever since I
have owned it.
Allow me to thank you for the care you will give it, for I hand it over to
you with complete confidence...
Henri Matisee
(Letter to Raymond Escholier)
Humility, respectfulness, liveness, learningfulness, appreciativeness,
loving, and above all the capacity to 'give' away what one truly loves.
The open minded hands of an artist.
Respectfully,
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