Studio Practice, Part I

An important yet often overlooked aspect of the development of modern art is how it transformed the meaning and significance of studio practice. Neither the Medieval craftsman and Renaissance painter nor the Academician conceived of their studio practice as a primary means of knowledge about themselves and the world. For the Medieval, Renaissance, and Academic painter, the question could be posed and its answer pursued through the Church (and the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophical tradition that was woven into it). For the modern artist, however, the studio became a place where aesthetic practice was infused with religious, philosophical, and even scientific meaning and significance. Making art thus became, somehow and in some way, a way of finding knowledge about the self and the world, not merely in illustrating or imaging what had already been discovered. Modern artistic practice gave unprecedented freedom to artists because they became unhinged from the interpretive moorings and institutional framework of both the Church and State (through the Academy). But this freedom brought with it responsibility to develop alternative interpretive frameworks. (Modern artists were keenly aware that “freedom” was not ontological; it was economic, i.e., merely “freedom from” a particular embodied situation, which was the Academy.) The obligation of the modern artist for the next two centuries was to develop his or her own alternative interpretive frameworks. The history of modern art is the history of artists developing these frameworks for their artistic practice. Too much attention is directed to the modern artists’ supposed “freedom to do whatever they want to do” without giving proper attention to the challenges that such unfettered freedom posed to the artist. (The notion that “creativity” can only thrive without prescribed or self-imposed limits is one of the worst misunderstandings of modern art.) That many artists, in developing their own interpretive frameworks, appropriated the Church’s rituals, practices, and goals for their studio practice is an often overlooked aspects of modern art’s relationship to religion in general and Christianity in particular.

The modern studio space thus becomes a location where existential questions regarding self-identity and knowledge about the world is developed and maintained through specific aesthetic actions, such as marks on a canvas. Within this modern paradigm, artistic practice becomes a means to gain understanding about the self and the world, to clarify what it means to be a human person in the world. The belief that this understanding can be achieved in part through artistic practice, through marks on a canvas, is the distinctive contribution of modern art to the history of human aesthetic work. This no doubt has been present in artistic practice in the West well before modernity, but it was implicit or perhaps only of secondary importance. Under the conditions of modernity, however, it becomes preeminent. For those of us who believe that those questions are ultimately answered within the context of the Church, we can either reject modern art out of hand or see it as an intensification of an aspect of human practice that is saturated with spiritual potential and thus as a useful means to extend the witness of the Church in culture.

Because it is a locus in which the artist confronts his or her freedom to do whatever he or she wants to do aesthetically, to be whatever kind of artist he or she wants to be, modern studio practice has the potential to be a powerful embodiment of the aesthetic and ascetic dimensions of Christian faith and practice while at the same time further developing modern artistic practice itself as a dynamic union of the aesthetic and ascetic, which many in the contemporary artworld have forgotten. As shaped and molded as both the Church and society in the U.S. are by a kind of Protestant culture that is vehemently anti-monastic and thus rather self-indulgent, we (both believers and unbelievers) often forget that the core of the Christian life is ascetic. We are called “to deny ourselves and take up our cross” and follow Jesus. We must impose limits to our freedom.  Our salvation depends upon it.  But the Christian life is also aesthetic, in that the goal of the ascetic disciplines, of fasting, prayer, contemplation, and study, for example, become means to mold and shape the person into a beautiful work of art, pleasing to God. (That the aesthetic is presumed to be a product of self-indulgence and not self-denial is one of the truly tragic errors of a decadent modernity to which both Christians and non-Christians must confess guilt.)

Modern studio practice is a place where the monastic tradition and its call for self-denial can be revived and a renewed understanding of the relationship between aesthetic and ascetic practice reaffirmed for the very practice of human life. This is evidenced with the recent media obsession with “repenting” from our excesses, which were brought to light through the real estate and stock market collapses. And so it is that the Christian college and university art department--that underfunded, supposedly marginalized backwater of the art world and higher education--just might have the resources to revive the spirit of the monastic tradition for both the Church and the larger culture. Whether it has the desire to do so is something else. 

Comments

[Kevin Hamilton]

Love this point:

"That many artists, in developing their own interpretive frameworks, appropriated the Church’s rituals, practices, and goals for their studio practice is an often overlooked aspects of modern art’s relationship to religion in general and Christianity in particular."

This is a very helpful way - perhaps the ONLY useful way - of looking for Christianity in modern art. Rather than searching for "redeeming" qualities within the secular sphere with which to tempt art's skeptics from the church to the museum, the method implied here invites us to take a more anthropological view.

One funny thing though is that it also resembles a lot of pomo critique, in that it invites us to look at how the situation of a particular artwork or audience relationship is "constructed." I suspect that the differences between your implied line of inquiry and that of say, Rosalind Krauss, would be akin to the differences between an authentic ascetic studio practice and a more cynical "post-studio" practice. (A term we learn from California MFA programs.)

[Rob]

This post coincides well with a documentary about Mondrian that I saw on the Ovation channel recently. It showed his Paris studio and talked about it as if Mondrian had tinkered with the room as an experiment in creating a perfect space. The room followed the same rules as his painting so it is almost as if he was trying to live in his work, which he no doubt considered to be approaching perfection.

Your sentence about the misunderstanding of unlimited creativity for an artist also reminds me of a Willa Cather quote I read in the new Jed Perl book, Antoine's Alphabet:

"...an artist's limitations are quite as important as his powers; that they are a definite asset, not a deficiency, and that both go to form his flavor, his personality...

Like you hinted, just because an artist can "do whatever they want" doesn't mean that they can really do what they want. Skill, and lack thereof, can hold back the artist. Money, materials, etc can also contribute to this. Let's not forget that the mere thought of freedom can be crippling. As a result, I'd say that with a few exceptions, artists have to work within limitations that other people might not see.

Tying the monastic pursuit with studio practice is a great insight. It is something that I have thought about before and even strive for, especially in those time where making art feels like a job rather than a way of serving God.