Netta Yudkevich

It is a link to my e-book "Meaning of Art." the book is free of charge. It constructed from four articles. The first one is "The Meaning of Art."
The articles are intended for general public and are eassy and plesant to read.
Hopfully, you will enjoy it.

M A N I F E S T O

Netta Yudkevich
©


I.

Conceptual Realism is a way of communicating an abstract idea by the images and sceneries done in realistic manner. An abstract idea is a concept, a thought, a state of mind, and an artist's preoccupation with certain issue that has no visual equivalency in the real life. For example, "Running crowd" is a concrete scene that can be photographed, drawn, or painted by a different media. However, such statement as "People have a need to move faster" is not scene, it’s a thought that doesn’t have visual equivalency in reality. It’s a concept, which complies with the definition of an abstract idea given above.
Conceptual Realism is a manner of painting, where the main elements painted with virtuosity characteristic to the masters of the past.

Objects in the world around us are visually recognizable and distinguished by their color, shape, and position in space, (the clouds in the sky, the grass on the ground.) To paint realistically means being faithful to these features, using the technique that was developed in a course of time, enabling the artist to transform the reality from three-dimensional space to the flat surface of a paper, canvas, or a plywood; to create an illusion of likeness. This technique, which includes knowledge of anatomy, laws of composition, studies of perspective and many other subjects was perfected through 15-19th centuries, from Renaissance to French Neorealism; from Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian to David, Delacroix, Ingress. During this time, the greatest masterpieces were created, which enriched enormously Western Civilization.
The Modernism made useless all the skills so carefully mastered by the some of the most brilliant minds.

The attempt to express a concept by means of the Fine Art distinguishes the Modern Art from the Past. Some artists like Miro, for example, created a "language" of special symbols - characters of their own - in order to tell a story. Usually it was written, declaring the philosophy of aesthetic and explaining the meaning of the images on canvases. This phenomena created a need for an agent, an interpreter between the canvas and the public. Consequently, such statements or manifestos, that explained the images, were written by the individuals other then the artist. For example, Apollinaire masterminded cubism, as well as surrealism. These declarations often became more important then the images on the canvas, such as the black square by Malevich. Taking the Black Square out of context, out of the philosophical believes, out of context of the History of Art, it will become just a square, a geometrical figure, in which all sides and angles are equal.
Abstractionism, stating that the shapeless spots of color are the cod to a higher thought, made another pretentious claim. It asserted the sophistication that was never there. Shapeless spots are shapeless spots, even if they do resemble something familiar. Similar formation, pleasant to the eyes, do exist in nature: patterns on the sea shell or glittering sparkles of an opal, ornaments of marble.
Nevertheless, no one ever asserted that this sparkle represent the complexity of the human relationship, or the structure of the Universe. Usually the abstract works were produced by throwing or dropping paint to the canvas or in a similar way. The artist had little control over his or her creation, doing it mindlessly, irrationally. It is hardly possible to produce something intellectually prominent, done mindlessly. Still, abstractionism popularized the idea that understanding of Modernism is a matter of a higher intelligence and a prominent intellect. It claimed the avant-garde to be an elitist. It further promoted and made fashionable new elements in Fine Art - the ability to shock by something controversial, inappropriate, or socially unacceptable, like excrement of an artist in a can.
Conceptual Realism is an attempt to express a concept by the means of realistic painting, not precluding other styles being used in the same work for the porpoise of communication of a complex message, intellectual in its nature. Conceptual Realism offers the possibility to merge the past and present, creating a pass to the feature.
In Conceptual Realism no objects are drawn for the sake of the object, merely to express its essential qualities and to reveal the manner of the artist as it was done before. The portraits of Ingress or Picasso not withstanding, all the differences of the technique and aesthetics they produced nevertheless reflect the individuality of a particular individual, as any portrait does. In Conceptual Realism the objects and their combinations create a rich palette of the symbolic meanings, related by associations, rooted in our daily life, history and culture, to the subject matter of the particular artwork. Conceptual Realism doesn't promote any particular manner of reshaping of the objects painted or appliance of pigments - something that styles and artists are distinguished for, e.g., Impressionism for appliance of pigment, Cubism for the special way of reshaping the object, expressionism for "rough" treatment of the familiar things. With Conceptual Realism the emphasis is on development of sophistication of metaphor in order to present a complex image, as well as on exploration and innovation of the creative method of Fine Art.
Art, (music, literature, poetry, dance and etc…), is a way of communication of an thought, an idea, a concept, a state of mind by the creative language and media unique to each form of art.
The media of poetry is a verbal meaning - via words, and its creative method is based on epithet, comparison, metaphor, rhythm and rhymes, alliteration, allegory and many others. The creative method of poetry is well systemized and serves as a value system that enables the reader objectively to analyze and appreciate poetry.
Before the modernism era the artist and his or her works were judged by the technical skills that one displayed, the ability of the artist to draw, to present an illusion of likeliness, to create images more fascinating than the nature itself is capable of producing. Modernism shifted emphasis to the idea behind the visual elements of the painting and sculpture. There is no objective criteria to evaluate such an idea, or a concept. It is a matter of a subjective perception of an individual or a social group, left to the free interpretations and the skills of the mediator. This led to an unprecedented phenomenon in the history of the arts and culture in general – manipulation of the public opinion and artificial creation of “names” in Fine Art. Conceptual Realism is an attempt to systemize and to define the Creative Method of Fine Art, something that was never done before, and to fully explore it. It is an attempt to provide certain criterions enable to analyze the creative value of artwork; something that is in absence of it became unjustified, left to critics, art historians and shrewd art dealers to decide:

1. METAPHOR - "the figure of speech founded on resemblance" as it's defined by Webster. It means that to an object or to phenomena are given some qualities or characteristics unusual to this thing. Metaphor widely used in poetry: "Shirt of flame", "frosty silence"; "vice fathered heroes" by T. Elliot are an example of such metaphors in poetry. Shirt cannot be made from flames and vice doesn't father anybody. The same method is used in painting. Bending watches introduced by Dali, or flying people by Chagall are purely metaphoric images. In literature a metaphor created by verbal expression, in paintings it is done through pictures of objects changing their colors, shape and functional qualities.

2. STYLIZATION - Stylization is a way of reshaping a thing or a human body in order to reinforce certain qualities, to generalize them. Usually the styles, or schools of Art are distinguished by the way they stylize or treat otherwise familiar shapes. Byzantic style differs from Cubism or expressionism in the way the human face or other features are reshaped. Graphic design is based on stylization. Corporate and product logos are created by reshaping, belittling or hyperbolizing the forms of the object.

3. ABSTRACTION - According to the dictionary "abstract" means the absence of concrete form. Abstraction is a method of picturing an object or a body by resembling its color or some other intrinsic features without authentically representing its features in detail. Sometimes the subject can be marked by a few imprecise brushstrokes or a pencil line. Any artist, that at one time or another painted a landscape in any manner, knows that it is impossible to draw every leaf of the tree or a hollow of its trunk. It has to be abstracted, bearing more or less the resemblance to the nature. The difference between stylization and abstraction is that stylization is based upon methods of reshaping, whereas abstraction is a method of simplifying.


4. SYMBOLIZATION is a method of using the language of symbols either self-created either cultural - established with the development of our society, such as an American flag or Coca-Cola bottle. Conceptualism and Pop Art are based on exploration of such social symbols. There are symbols rooted in our culture, religion, philosophy. Perhaps, a simple example would be a white dove. A dove might signify peace, humanism, hope, etc., depending on the knowledge and life experiences of the viewer. Umberto Eco, contemporary proponent of semiotic, devoted a chapter in his novel "Island of the day before" to the symbolic meaning of the Dove. Painted as an element of composition of the painting, white dove will emphasize the quest for peace, or something else related to this subject.

5. ASSOCIATIVE STRUCTURALISM - associative structuralism is a method of combination of images related by free association with the idea or a theme of the painting. Things have symbolic meanings, which are driven by association with their qualities and function in our life. For example, violin is a musical instrument that produces certain sounds. Yet, violin simultaneously represents music in general, entertainment, celebration, etc. Associative structuralism is a way of synthesizing the objects, relating the scenes by their qualities to the main idea of the piece of art and, thus, creating complex and sophisticated image.

Conceptual Realism is a search for innovation in the realm of creative method - the language of the expression - within the limits and endless possibilities of Fine Art.




II.

The masterpieces created during 15th - 20th centuries include Mona Lisa by Leonardo, David by Michelangelo, Maria Magdalene by Titian, Majas by Goya, Helen by Rubens, Flora by Rembrandt, Odalisque by Ingress, and etc. have in common one quality - beauty, perfected emphasized, idolized, capable to this days to influence us to the extend of psychological disorder known as David's syndrome, a kind of inferiority complex, a filling of imperfection, unworthiness that some people experience while visiting Florence.
Copernicus changed the structure of Solar system placing the sun in the center and planets revolving around the sun based not on scientific observation, but on his own sense of harmony. The old Ptolemaic theory with the Earth in the center didn't seem aesthetical to him.
Modern physicists very often use the definition "aesthetic" in order to evaluate a theory and the physical phenomena it describes, if it symmetrical, harmonious, and homogeneous. It means that balance, symmetry, proportion are the physical qualities, essential to the existence, the binding power that holds all this waste Universe together, the world that we are part of. The instinctive perception of the order, balance, and symmetry is our sense of beauty that artists and mathematicians tried to calculate in the time of Renaissance.
500 hundred years ago Leonardo da Vinci, one of the most prominent minds that ever lived, understood this perfectly well. He devoted a lot of efforts in order to discover the ideal proportion of the human body and the perfect balance of the composition of images in his works. As a result of this search for “divine proportion” the world got the famous Vitruvian man by Leonardo.
The art of painting and sculpture is inseparable from the physical world. It operates with visual objects of the reality, their shape, color, material it’s created and etc. It takes us a glance and a moment to realize if we like this sunset over see, or the field grown with poppies. The same goes with the painting and sculpture. It takes a second to captivate us, to hypnotize, to revoke some euphoric feelings that only Beauty does
Conceptual Realism is an attempt to restore the aesthetics as they were perceived before the avant-garde. Conceptual Realism is an attempt to rephrase a Neo Platonic believe that “the perfection of the form expresses the divine” by which old masters were guided, where “the divine” means the laws and principles that our world is based up on.

Biography of an Artist.


In the year 2004 I was awarded Grand Gold medal of M.C.A. – international festival of visual art, held in Cannes, France. To me it means recognition of my creative efforts, and my search to preserve the achievements of the past with the innovation of the future in contemporary Art.

I was born in Russia and was brought up in a typical Russian way. This means that at the age of two a child should be able to recite a little poem by Pushkin, and at the age of 5 to play a piece from some Piano Sonata by Mozart. With little poems I had no problems, but, in the absence of any musical gift, matters with the Piano Sonata didn’t advanced behind the octave.


As a child I did not posses any special talents not to music, not to ballet, and not to the art of painting. In fact, the opposite was true. I did not paint any better then any other children, nor even did I like to paint. My aunt, who was a teacher of art and craft, used to teach us – all the cousins, to paint in watercolors. Till this day I remember the little bouquet of violets in a glass that she put in front of us; my frustration and envy. My cousins, which were older then me, were painting much better.

From an early age I recognized the flows in my drawings, and the difference between my scribbles and the paintings of the real artists. I refused to create something so inferior.

Perhaps, my gift of painting did show up in some strange ways. When my mother tried to teach me reading, she would show me a letter and than ask: “What letter is it”? I would answer – “yellow”, or “green”, or “blue”. “I”, for example, was turquoise. My mother thought that I was not very smart, and it never occurred to her that it’s the artist was speaking in me.


When I was seven years old, I used to tear of the pages from the Russian magazine “Ogoniek," in which reproductions of work by Leonardo de Vince, Titian, Michelangelo, and others from the Hermitage collection, were shown. I hid them under my pillow, and when no one was around, I would stare, fascinated, studying them for hours. Indeed, they were my childhood's secret treasure.

In those days in Russia, I knew nothing about religion. I was not familiar with any of the Bible stories. Maria Magdalene, Judith, Madonna meant nothing to me. Yet, somehow I recognized the "divinity" of the great art.

During my adolescent years I went to study art with a private teacher, because the neighbor’s girl, Irene, went. Irene wanted to be an artist. I desperately wanted to learn at list to draw anything, despite my lack of abilities. After a few lessons I realized that I have it… I knew how to look at an object, how to copy it’s shape, how to shade it from light to dark. I understood the main principles of painting, the rest was just practice and technical details. This knowledge was inside of me. The teacher just revoked it.

I read everything I could get about art and artists. When my peers asked for a new a bicycle, I asked my parents to take me to the museums of Moscow and St. Petersburg. And they did.

I remember my first visit to Hermitage - the dizziness while passing the Rembrandt’s room; standing motionless in front of Titian’s “Maria Magdalena”; and nearly fainting at the site of “Madonna with a Flower” by Leonardo da Vinci.
However, at the age of 16, when I graduated from high school, painting was not my choice of a career. I did not choose Art. It chose me. I always was an artist, but I did not know it yet.
A few years later, when my family immigrated to Israel, I began to study fashion design and art; in the beginning in different art school, such as Mahon Avni, or Beyt Hanna; but very soon my classes moved to the studios of an established Israeli artists. I don’t hold any diploma of prestigious Russian Academy, and in some way have no a formal education. I can say the same as Michelangelo that he is self touched. It means that you decide what you need to study in order to produce what you want; and you pick up this knowledge from any artist whom you meet on your way. My non-formal education exceeds any available in nowadays.
Yet, being an artist in our time does not mean being a painter. Modernism does not require one to be a skillful drawer. You have to be creative, to have a good sense of color, to be eloquent and original. Originality of an idea became a paramount requirement from a piece of art. And I went with the main stream.

I used to glue fabric, dyed in acrylic paint, to the canvas in the shapes resembling men and women, which were surrounded by graphic images of musical instruments.

In 1990 I moved to New York. It was there, where my career was lunched. I began to exhibit my works in the galleries, and occasionally to sell them, but it did not bring me any satisfaction.

I was experimenting with original ideas and innovative techniques. I enjoyed doing so, but I could not get rid of the feeling that I was participating in a kind of a “conspiracy,” and that I was not being truthful to myself and to the public. Most of contemporary masterpieces looked pitiful in comparison to the “Flora” by Rembrandt, or “Odalisque” by Ingress. I was haunted by the mystery of the “divinity” that distinguishes the works of olds masters. The idea that all the knowledge of the past - the techniques carefully mastered and perfected through the centuries by Leonardo de Vince and Michelangelo, Van Dyck and Rembrandt, Delacroix and Ingress were mostly neglected by avant-garde movements and countless styles that it produced, became more and more disturbing to me.

Is this Fine Art? What have all these urinals and human excrements to do with the art of painting? In the absence of a “smart” statement, most of the contemporary masterpieces look meaningless to the extent of being absurd. Perhaps, it is another form of art and should be properly defined.

On the other hand, the Academism and realistic painting in the midst of the 19th century reached its height and exploited its possibilities. The traditional themes - portraits, landscapes, and sceneries were, in a way, limiting intellectually. In this sense, the contemporary Art had a liberating effect. It made an attempt to express more than any scene or portrait did, or was capable of doing. It introduced and established a trend to emphasize a concept. So, why shouldn’t I to try to combine those qualities together – a concept with the technique of realistic painting

All these thoughts, constant doubts, intensive search and self-examination preceded the development of the style that I define as Conceptual Realism.
Conceptual Realism is an idea, a concept, abstract in its nature, carried out in a realistic manner.
Since 1993-1996 I began to develop this style. My works, which followed, were created in accordance with the principles of Conceptual Realism, but not for a long time.

At 2001 I was diagnosed with breast cancer and moved to Israel at the demands of my family. For a couple of years I had to put my career on hold.
Today I am cancer free, but the fight with the disease affected my productivity, and my advancement in the field of Art. Yet, I never stopped painting, I never gave up. And the reason that I am openly talking about my fight with the disease, because art of painting was an important part of it.
Wile undergoing treatment I continued to exhibit my works in USA, including Queens Museum of Art, due of the previous obligations. The paintings were shown in Israel, and in France. In France, Cannes, I participated in international festival of visual art and was awarded the Grand Gold Medal.
Today I am full of new ideas, which I am working on right now, and I do hope that my best works are yet to come.

In the year 2004 I was awarded Grand Gold Medal at M.C.A. – international festival of visual art, held in Cannes, France.

Meaning of Art.
Netta Yudkevich.
©
Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible
monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the
arts and the origin of marvels.
Francisco de Goya






I happened to be an artist. At the moment some one finds out that I am an artist, certain kind of question, as a routine, are following. How should we perceive the contemporary art? How to appreciate the modern masterpiece? How to evaluate, and how to recognize one?
I am used to this type of “investigations,” sometimes triggered by the scandalous piece of exhibit, or a story that run on TV; for example - about a wander-elephant from St. Diego zoo. Zookeepers would put in front of the animal an easel with canvas, some buckets with colors. The elephant, holding a brash in his trunk, would deep it in the paint and cover the canvas with the vigorous strokes.
Elephant from St. Diego zoo is not an only gifted representative of the flora and fauna, known for his special talents. In the 50ies the chimpanzee Congo became famous for his artistic endeavors. Picasso himself admired monkey’s works.
Personally, I have no doubt that in savannas and jungles of Africa there are many more gifted animals, but not discovered yet. Lately You Tube is flowed by the videos of four legged artists.
When ever attacked by the curious public, I would explain that modern art should be perceived in the contest of time. It would be wise to get acquainted with aesthetic philosophy of the artist, or the style he represents. As a rule, I would mention Dadaism, Suprematism, Constructivism, and few other “isms,” that would cross my mind, and convince my opponents that they are totally illiterate in Modernism. By doing so I would invest my share to the promotion of the myth about elitism of avant-garde, and inapproachability by commoners – the plebes. Yet, myself I believed in those popular ideas less and less with each passing year.
Still, I don’t have the answers how to distinguish a real artists from a pretender, or how to recognize a modern masterpiece; or what is art. I couldn’t find them in the books, encyclopedias, articles written on the subject by the philosophers, the artists, the art historians. I discovered many nice expression, which I collect to this day, but all of them are purely poetic, rather then rational definitions.
What is Art?
The controversies of contemporary art always were a subject of hited discussion between artists and their colleges. Recently I meet a friend of mine that I didn’t see for a couple of years. For this time she accomplished a PhD in history of art. Our discussion turned to pop-art. She highly praised Andy Warhol for being exceptionally smart and shred person. I expressed my disgust with his famous statement that “Art is making money”. “The art of making money is business, and has nothing to do with Fine Art” - I stated. Since when marketing is an artistic feature?
My friend agreed with me. She confirmed that in our days it’s dificulte to distinguish what is real art and what is not. And then she added that art is everything shown in galleries, museums and other public spaces, convenient for exhibitions.
The rational of this statement is based on the fact that somewhere there is curator – an expert, who is capable to decide, if this piece is a garbage or a masterpiece.
And yet, in our days is possible to rent galleries and public spaces. During the “perestroika” in Russia it was possible to rent a word famous museum. For this matter - the place where the work is exhibited tells nothing about its artistic value.
The same state of matters are characteristic to the literature, music, theater, cinema, and etc. For a certain amount of money it’s possible to publish any book, to produce a CD, a theater production, or a movie, if there is enough capital. With the right public relationship and marketing campaign it’s possible to achieve commercial success and fame. The conclusion is that the price of the work doesn’t define the artistic value.
So what does? What is art?
Art, (music, literature, poetry, dance, and etc…) is a way of communication of a thought, an idea, a concept, a state of mind, a perception of an author, his opinions, his philosophy by the creative language; media and tools special to each form of art.



The media and tools.

In order to create different media and tools are used in each form of art. Media of the literature is language, tools varies from the goose feather to Microsoft Word. Musical instruments are essential for producing a symphony. Marble, stone, bronze and etc. are the media of the sculpture.
There is no point to mention each pigment, solution and instrument used in the Fine art. It is commonly known, although, the technology of the paint production is a science by itself, as well as the making of the brushes.




Technique.

One of the important criterions in evaluation of a piece of art is the technique of its production, or performance.
All around the world competitions are held in the field of classical music, opera and ballet. Usually the winners are chosen by the juries by the virtuosity of their performance.
Competitions are not popular in the field of visual art, although the participants of different festivals and biennales are judged by a jury; winners are awarded medals and prices. On of the most prestigious Biennale is held in Venice, and is known as Venetian Biennale.
Yet, the mastery, or how the work is produced, in the art of 20ies century, is less important, then it was at any time in history. The famous artist Joan Pollack was creating his masterpieces, pouring paint from a bucket directly on the canvas, spread on the floor of his studio. Did he need any knowledge of the lows of perspective or anatomy to do so?
Ones Dali was asked how to distinguish a real artist from a charlatan. Dali replayed:
-Put in front of him a horse and ask to draw it. The one who will succeed to do so is a real artist.(For authenticity of this story I am not responsible).
Basically, the technique is an ability to recreate a horse, which exists in three dimensional space on the flat surface; to project the likeness, the grace and the power of the animal. And no one should neglect a horse. Many artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, devoted many hours to sketching the animal. Peter Rubens kept in his work shop an expert, who specialized at painting the horse’s behind.
On the contrary, American artist Jasper Johns, whose work “American Flag” was purchased by IBM for 17 millions dollars, admits that he cannot draw a thing from nature, and when ever he needs something, he copies the drawings of ther artists. According to Dali, Jasper Johns is not a real artist.

Some contemporary expert will argue with me that that the real value is in the idea. And I do agree, but I have problems with the ideas. Some statements of a very prominent artist like Jasper Johns, who claims that world, consist from triangles, squares and circles, (a wretchedness of the thought,) are clearly an insult to my intelligence.
Perhaps two components are equally important when we are trying to estimate a piece of art – the intellectual depth of a philosophical statement combined with virtuosity of painting. The Modernism produced significant number of painters which complied with those requirements. The greatest of them all is Salvador Dali. (This explains why I placed reproduction of his work at the beginning of the article.)

The knowledge of the technique of painting includes the lows of composition, the lows of perspective; theory of complimentary colors; basic technology of the production of the painting or a sculpture. At list, an artist has to know how to apply color on the surface; which paint - oil or water fit to a certain surface, and with which brush to stroke the canvas or paper, or wooden board.
Representatives of the classic school of Fine art believe that an artist should study anatomy, although the old masters at the time of of Renaissance didn’t know anatomy for a reason that such science didn’t exist yet. The Church did allow the artists to be present at anatomy theatres at the dissections of the bodies of sentenced to death criminals. Yet, this practice was not encouraged. Leonardo would hurry to the place of anatomical theater under cover of the night out of his quest for knowledge. His drawings contributed and perhaps defined a young science – anatomy.
Until the 20ies centuries a paintings were judged by the mastery, the technique, the knowledge of the object painted. For example, Ingress was criticized by the expert for distortion of the human body, the anatomical inaccuracy - the back of Odalisque was too long; and hands of Madame Leblanc are not even and etc.
Special attention was dedicated to the subject matter chosen by an artist, his interpretation of the famous myth or a Bible story.
Critics were always interested who posed for the artist, although a painter, or a sculptor not always needs a model. Rafael admitted that he never met a woman, who could serve him as a prototype for his Madonnas. They were the fruits of his imagination.
The 20-ies century switched the accent of the Fine Art to the concepts its expresses. The techniques developed and perfected during the centuries from Piero della Francesca and Jan van Eyck became excessive. The techniques were an attributes of realistic painting. And realistic painting became unfavorable.
However, the mastery, regardless of the fashionable trends, always will be an essential component of the Fine Art.


Creative Method.
The creative language is a set of methods that an author uses to produce his piece of artwork. This method is well known and classified in the literature, the music, the dance, and especially in the poetry. There are encyclopedias of special terminology related to the every creative aspect of the poetry – comparison, metaphor, alliteration, hyperbola, allegory, rhymes; and sizes of the rhythms, to name few. Such detailed characteristics allows the public and the critics to analyze and appreciate a poetic stanza much more professionally.
In contemporary art critics are busy more with interpretation of the work or the style. For example, few chaotic brown spots on the canvas serve the art critic for the following phrase: “ vibrating synthesis of the light in the optic space”…..
Critics became mediators between the work and the public, that has difficulties to understand the work by them self. If the painting or a sculpture done in more abstract manner, its interpretation is not bounded by any limits. Without the help of some Doctor of History of Art it becomes impossible to find some rational meaning.
Still painters and sculptors use the same methods familiar to the rest of the forms of art – metaphor for example.


1. METAPHOR - "the figure of speech founded on resemblance" as it's defined by Webster. It means that to an object or to phenomena are given some qualities or characteristics unusual to this thing. Metaphor widely used in poetry: "Shirt of flame", "frosty silence"; "vice fathered heroes" by T. Elliot are an example of such metaphors in poetry. Shirt cannot be made from flames, and vice doesn't father anybody. The same method is used in painting. Bending watches introduced by Dali, or flying people by Chagall are purely metaphoric images. In literature a metaphor created by verbal expression, in paintings it is done through pictures of objects changing their colors, shape and functional qualities.



2. STYLIZATION - Stylization is a way of reshaping a thing or a human body in order to reinforce certain qualities, to generalize them. Usually the styles or schools of Art are distinguished by the way they stylize or treat otherwise familiar shapes. Byzantine style differs from Cubism or expressionism in the way the human face is reshaped. Graphic design is based on stylization. Corporate signs and product logos are created by reshaping, belittling or hyperbolizing the forms of the object.




3.ABSTRACTION - According to the dictionary "abstract" means the absence of concrete form. Abstraction is a method of picturing an object or a body by resembling its color or some other intrinsic features without authentically representing its features in detail. Sometimes the subject can be marked by a few imprecise brushstrokes or a pencil line. Any artist, that at one time or another painted a landscape in any manner knows that it is impossible to draw every leaf of the tree or a hollow of its trunk. It has to be abstracted, bearing more or less the resemblance to the Nature. The difference between stylization and abstraction is that stylization is based upon methods of reshaping whereas abstraction is a method of simplifying





4. SYMBOLIZATION is a method of using the language of symbols either self-created either established with the development of our society, such as an American flag or Coca-Cola bottle. Conceptualism and Pop Art are based on exploration of such social symbols. There are symbols rooted in our culture, religion, philosophy. Perhaps, a simple example would be a white dove – a symbol of peace. A dove t signifies peace, humanism, hope, etc., depending on the knowledge and life experiences of the viewer. Umberto Eco, contemporary proponent of semiotic, devoted a chapter in his novel "Island of the day before" to the symbolic meaning of the Dove. Painted as an element of composition white dove will add to the meaning of the work the theme of peace.





5. ASSOCIATIVE STRUCTURALISM - associative structuralism is a method of combination of images related by free association with the idea or a theme of the painting. Things have symbolic meanings, which are driven by association with their qualities and function in our life. For example, violin is a musical instrument that produces certain sounds. Yet, violin simultaneously represents music in general, entertainment, celebration, etc. Associative structuralism is a way of synthesizing the objects, relating the scenes by their qualities to the main idea of the piece of art and, creating complex and sophisticated image.




6. PROVOCATION. Visual provocations of the social norms got into to the mainstream of visual art, and in many cases serve the primary criterion for evaluating a piece of work. (A human scull, incrusted with diamonds by Damien Hirst, one of the best selling artist of our time, is a latest version of the “ready maid” intention to provoke.)

Few methods listed above are few known in the field of visual art. An extensive research is needed in order to establish the full length of the creative method of visual art.



Innovation.

The 20ies century brings new criterion to visual art. Except for an attempt to intellectualize the modern art of painting and sculpture, a special value was granted to the innovation, an ability to found and establish a new style or a trend, like Picasso - Cubism, Dali - Surrealism, Kandinsky - Abstractionism, Warhol Pop-art; and etc. Those artists are destined to occupy a special place in the History of Art.
An ability to contribute something new and original, very often visually shocking, became paramount to the recognition of these artists, to the artistic value of their works.


Aesthetics.

There is a certain confusion with a meaning of the word “aesthetics.” It’s used in the context of the creative credo of an artist. It’s a subject of the philosophy, that studies the role of the art in life; it’s a synonym of the “beauty.”
In any case, aesthetics is related to quality of being nice, pleasant to the eyes of the observer; enjoyable to our senses.
In the Fine art aesthetics has a special importance. The old masters were guided by philosophy of Plato, which states that the Beauty is a manifestation of Divine. They were aware that works of art have an ability to amaze, to hypnotize, and to cause the viewer to become “speechless and motionless”. (Lately the psychologists discovered a psychological syndrome – an inferiority complex that some visitors of Florence develop, as a result of encountering the images by Botticelli, Michelangelo and others occupants of the Uffizi Museum.)
Since the time of Euclid, and perhaps earlier, it was known to men that such perfection is reached by the proportions of the shapes, placed on canvas, or in space. It meant that harmony could be calculated. Among many proportions one was known for its unique properties – the "golden section," or "golden ratio."
The golden section is a precise way of dividing a line, music or anything else, which appeared early in mathematics. It goes back at least as far as 300 B.C., when Euclid described it in his major work, the Elements.
The Golden Proportion, phi, has been observed to evoke emotion or aesthetic feelings within us. Renowned artists such as Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci made use of it for they knew of its appealing qualities.
Sharing the similar convictions artists and mathematicians of the Renaissance were trying to solve the mystery of the beauty, to calculate it. "...no human inquiry can be called science unless it pursues its path through mathematical exposition and demonstration." -Leonardo da Vinci. His famous Vitruvian man is another result of the search for this illusive divine proportion.



The artist, Piero dela Francheska, wrote a book about the laws of the perspective. He is considered to be the founder of descriptive geometry. His student –Luki Pacholli who shared his mentor ideas regarding the importance of science in art had published another book “Divine Proportions.”
With the advancement of math, only now, the mathematicians are able to calculate some algorithms of beauty, most of which remains a mystery.
Yet, the ideal proportions are not enough to bestow a painting with hypnotic qualities. The impressionists didn’t bother with the proportions at all. The accent was on the color palette, combination of complementary colors and etc. Their works are incredibly attractive to the viewer.
Perhaps, the contrast between light and dark shadows adds an appealing quality to the eye of the “beholder.” Caravaggio and Rembrandt, using such a method in their paintings, proofed its amazing effect.

Still, I don’t think that somebody knows how to captivate the public. (At list, by originality of an idea?). All the equations and calculations of the ideal proportions are not enough to create David, Pieta, or Mona Lisa. I can assure the art lovers that Michelangelo did not cover sheets of paper with numbers, counting how much of the marble to take out in order to curve his renown sculpture from the shapeless rock.
Perhaps, it’s an inner felling that some of us - the geniuses, were born with.
Modernism, which is in its essence a riot against classical art, claimed that the beautiful is “kitsch