ModernArt:CataclysmicorApocalyptic An Art Lecture by Aristodimos Kaldis 13' 1978
delivered at Parsons School' November
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elements can contribute to over-recognition of an artist or sometimes to stifle his reputation, not totally eliminate it, because neither Rembrandi nor El Greco were corpses' They were there, but not so much publicized, but periodically they
ghteenth century, h, when theY tried Aegeans bY inter-
of water in another six hours. When I was there as a young man
of fifteen and sixteen, I was surprisid to see that many ships
with flat bottoms were still sitting down there. It was true, I
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it becomes the same thing. The other was Heraclitus (that you ought to know), and even the art of India with the Buddha of Pergamum artists which he carried along with him. (Later on, Napoleon did the
this condition. For instance, we have in America today a highly permissive society, so the art world is in a high permissive way, to such an extent that everybody can jump in and make a line and
hi now she decided to Paint. "You paint! What medium do you paint in?" I don't use mediums; I use drawings'"
a great period of art, because there who went to Persia and his PeoPle miniatures; built churches even as far as China and influenced Chinese painting, which now for the first time used color, previously the Chinese always used black and white.
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that and hope I did it with mY exhibition." "Did you sell any?" "No, that's not the Point." Two months later on, she met me and I asked her, "Did you sell any more, did you do anything with your work?" 'f aian't do much, but I was invited by three different col-
with the Muslims. There are mosartists built mosques as far away as gions sometime playing a great role in developing art. Howevei, the Protestants destroyed all art, they were so pure that they didn't believe in art decoration of churches' ^Catholics andbrthodox believe in real decoration, and that is why we have all that richness of the Renaissance and other
n that par-
paintingey did the same thing because-like the son-in-law of Marx says in a nice, charming book which you young people should read, The Right To Be Lazy, a very attractive book-under the Catholics there
were 186 holidays, but the Protestants abolished most of them, abolished all painting in churches, and forbade work on Sunday, and took all of the joy away from the people. Art flowers and blossoms when people have festivals. The festival is that which creates the situation in which something beautiful is seen that stimulates the artist. The painting has to be beautiful to the eye like Delacroix says, "Painting should be, first of all, a feast for the eye or it cannot be painting." I can go on and on and talk to you, but because the time is late and they are going to need this hall later on. I will start now and show you a few slides and we can talk while I show you. (applause) We see in the Nineteenth century where modern art came about. It was the big cataclysmic way in which everything changed in the life of the people, the discovery of estymigian and everything. The horse that was used-I chose Gericault and when you see this at the Louvre - I believe it is before Delacroix-I love this horse that is painted with beautiful texture. It doesn't have form, so that the abstract expressionists would like it. There is nothing new under the sun in painting. The next is Monet's La Gare de St. Lazare, which shows you the engine at one of the old stations of Paris. When people
began to use the railroads and slowly travel over Europe, Africa, and India and the remotest parts of the world became accessible to the archeologists, art historians, and painters, who began to bring from all over the world all the beautiful things that the archaeologists and the anthropologists, the historians brought to enrich the museums, which in turn, stimulated many artists to create various forms. Here is the prehistoric Egyptian pottery, and you see that it has a novel form, similar to that of the Aegean. It is the plasticity of all these genres. A man like Brancusi and others used that form. They call it pre-dynastic. These are pre-dynastic, too-in other words-before there were any organized dynasties. Dynasty means an imperialistic kingdom which put an order to an anarchical society.
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e holy ghost which is portrayed
with the sun and the rain. Do you know those churches? They have the eye and the sun over the separation of the main church from the table where they do the sacrament. So the Egyptians, the Jews and the Greeks are the first Christians and
religions are made by compromise of different races. Like today, the Communists and Socialists keep on compromising and the Catholics begin to compromise with the Communists for a better coexistence. This is another prehistoric animal. This is more Mesopotamian. . . .