| Description | MB: When would you say that modern art began?
DH: It depends where you start from. Almost from nowhere in Europe. Van Gogh’s Chair (1888). Perhaps Cezanne? Looking at the Japanese for whom verisimilitude had never been essential. One of Hokusai’s Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku Sanju Rokkei, c.1826-1833), Under the Fukugawa Mannen Bridge. Japanese prints were very influential; one which Van Gogh copied. Trying to find the essential component which gives the illusion.
MB: Van Gogh was looking for a different kind of "real", real to the emotions.
DH: real to the experience. Photographic reality is of a second; painting includes layers of time.
MB: The manifestos of the early 20th century when artists began to work in a self-consciously "different" way.
DH: The most radical thing was the invention of Cubism – which was about depicting reality in a better way. Picasso’s Nature morte à la chaise canné / Still Life With Chair Caning (1912) towards verisimilitude which is against "essences" and isn’t natural as we "edit" what we see; nobody sees everything. More Cubist paintings.
MB: Surely this creates a puzzle for anyone else to look at?
DH: Not necessarily. Naturalist picture look skilful, but they are essentially camera images. Canaletto used a camera obscura and his students drew out the detail. The real skill came in filling in the outlines and capturing the Venetian light; painting. |
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