My Kid Could Paint That

J. M. William Turner, Fire Aboard a Ship, 1835

As we proceed to the next piece you may find yourself wondering "What's up with this kid's theme? Art is Motion? Does he mean Art in Motion? No, I don't. Art moves, lives, and breathes. If it's good art anyway. I can't say much for the stick figure renditions of class field-trips that may adorn some of your refrigerators. But I could be wrong about those, as well.

Even if the subject in a work appears motionless, there is movement hidden beneath the image, harkening back to the work's conception. The true artist breathes life and motion into the canvas with every brush stroke, whether the strokes be violent or gentle, rough or smooth, clashing or flowing. My objective here is to capture that concept through pieces that express motion through their subject - though remember, we just decided that that's not a requirement - and capture the beauty of movement in oil, bronze, and stone.

Now, I have to be honest here: This one isn't nearly as fun as the last. Those of you not fond of the macabre might as well scout ahead of the group, take a look at some of the other pieces chosen by my compatriots here on the blog. You won't regret it, they're top notch writers. For those of you still here, welcome to the twisted world of William Turner. Shipwrecks and ocean storms appear throughout Turner's work, so Fire Aboard a Ship doesn't particularly stand out among the crowd through its subject. Instead its merit lies within the chaotic, yet calculated movement of brushwork and color within the piece. I'd like to invite you to spend a minute or two with the painting before joining me again in the next paragraph.

Horrific, huh? Those purples, browns, and blacks, contorting, congealing, and cavorting about the flaming ship draw the viewer into the center of the painting where the helpless castaways struggle to stay aboard the vessel. But look closely. The movement of the waves and the ocean has taken away the form of the ship, leaving only a sea swell, vaguely resembling a craft which the people clammer to board, even as they become one with the unforgiving ocean. Through violent and methodic strokes, Turner transforms the sea into a living breathing amalgamation of merciless waves, dragging the ship and her children into the cold depths of the deep blue.

Alberto Giacometti, City Square, 1948

"He carried the revolver in his belt at the front and wore his parka unzipped. The mummied dead everywhere. The flesh cloven along the bones, the ligaments dried to tug and taut as wires. Shriveled and drawn like latterday bogfolk, their faces of boiled sheeting, the yellowed palings of their teeth. They were discalced to a man like pilgrims of some common order for all their shoes were long since stolen." - The Road, Cormac McCarthy

Lost. Lonely. Fragile. Alberto Giacometti's figures have an aura of alien beauty. Like mirages in an endless desert, the shadow-people of Giacometti's City Square do not seem to be human, but rather resemble wraiths wondering a barren landscape. They evoke the deeper, darker essence of humanity. From the time that Giacometti first developed his mature style - the thin shadowy sculptures that most people associate with him - he became obsessed with capturing in an instant the world around him. Now whether this image of the world came from something that he saw in things, or whether he wished to capture the feeling that things gave him, even Giacometti did not know.

But one thing remains clear: In a world where once great cities lay in ruins from the war, and wanderers shuffled through the wreckage, Giacometti's wraiths wandered beside them. The Existentialist symbols of a world wracked by destruction remain even today, cast and trapped in a bronze tomb. Perhaps it is the sense that Giacometti's figures represent something supernatural, that the viewer is not quite alone when standing before works such as City Square, that haunts and captivates the imagination. Forever frozen in time, Giacometti's bronze ghosts stand as a testament to the power of sculpture. They are beautiful. They are horrifying.