The Emotions of Duane Michals

(Post 1)

Everything is subject for photography, especially the difficult things of our lives: anxiety, childhood hurts, lust, nightmares. The things that cannot be seen are the most significant. They cannot be photographed, only suggested.
-Duane Michals

Before I begin examining the technological side of art and the electric culture that surrounds many of us, I would like to take a quiet moment to examine an under-appreciated photographer I stumbled across. This photographer's name is Duane Michals. He is a conventional photographer, who distinguishes himself through writing and narrative.

Michals physically writes on the majority of his photographs. He may give the piece an awkwardly long title, or he may tell a story that unfolds over a series of photographs. One thing becomes undeniable: Michals tells us what his photographs are about through his writing. Instead of our standing in front of the image, clumsily speculating what certain objects, body language, or compositional choices mean, Michals tells us what the undertones of his images are. I feel that in no way does this subtract from the value of his photos. In no way does it feel inappropriate or forced upon us as the viewer. His words do not analyze or pick apart the aesthetics of his photography, but they explain the look of the subject—whether it is lustful, cautious, or elated.

What makes his images even more powerful is that many of them touch upon emotions that we all have felt at one point or another in our own lives. While one may skip over or dismiss several of his images, it is almost certain that sooner or later, the viewer will stop to reflect: “I have felt that. I understand that look.” The words written on the photograph by Michals only solidify this process, and instead of being left to wonder the artist’s intentions, we are left reflecting on our own life and the idea that we are not alone. That is powerful photography.

In the Beginning There was Impressionism

Manet Lemon

I took a modern art history class in high school that began with the Impressionist movement. The teacher argued that the Impressionist movement was responsible for modern art, as we know it. The Impressionists such as Manet, Monet, Degas, and Camille Pissarro were the catalyst for the creative drive that fueled Dadaism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism, etc. At the time I was skeptical, because I did not understand how Impressionism could be so far reaching and all encompassing. It took several more art theory and modern art history classes before I was convinced.

Let us briefly examine the traits of Impressionist painting as I have come to see them. Impressionism is most importantly the study of light. Light defines all objects and subjects in the painting; lines are rarely or never used at all. Impressionism is the bold use of color. Unmixed color is common, and the hue of color is often times exaggerated. The use of black pigment is discouraged and shadows are often times colorful. The hand of the artist is emphasized. Brushstrokes are brash and blending is often times completed through the eye. Color theory is critical. Placing blue next to orange will cause the eye to blend the colors into a neutral gray.

So how, then, did this color revering art movement come to influence the history of art? Simply put, Impressionism was the first movement to openly reject Academic art. Manet’sThe Picnic is not only a scandalous picture in presenting women in such a manor, but it is also playful with perspective and lighting. This alteration becomes an open rejection of the standard formal and detail driven techniques established in academic painting. Examine the woman in the background of this picture carefully in respect to those figures in the foreground to observe the skew in perspective and lighting. More technically, however, Impressionism was the first art movement to soften the hand of the artist. Instead of detail driven reproductions of figure, objects, and landscape, Impressionism broadened the concern of the artist. Now painting was focused on the materials, such as the paint and brushwork, which brings the painting itself into the plain of the viewer. This idea of bringing the work into the space of the viewer is frequently practiced in modern art. Making the viewer aware of the space they inhabit and the material used to make the work of art is a practice perfected by Frank Stella and Donald Judd in Minimalism.

The capturing of light in Impressionist paintings plays with the idea of feeling and emotion. While Impressionism never attempted to breach the realms of emotion, Abstract Expressionism thrived on the idea of the emotion of the painter, and how this emotion could be transmitted onto the canvas for a viewer to identify. One need look no further than the splatter paintings of Jackson Pollock to identify emotion in Abstract Expressionist art. To conclude, one must recognize that Impressionism was the doorway into what we call modern art.

An Impressionist painter taught me how to paint. It was not until I began taking art history classes, however, that I identified with this style of painting in its entirety. After years of painting in this manner, I have found it influences my drawing, photography, and graphic design. While I feel I go beyond Impressionism in many ways, such as the examination of human emotion, I am always linked to its most fundamental constituent: the study of light and color.

Nick Leitner Green Apples 2004