Wednesday 6 January 2016

John Renshaw page updated



My personal (and intuitive and improvisational) visual conversation’ with Morandi continues. In connection with a recurring concern for tonal relationships in my drawings, I was prompted to recall the drawings of Myron Stout. (Most particularly his black and white graphite drawings). In addition, his thoughts concerning painting and also abstraction also seemed interesting.

The following is an extract from an interview with the artist discussing painting and published on-line:
(Interviewer: Robert Brown: see ‘Oral history interview with Myron S. Stout 1984. Archives of American Art - Smithsonian Institution -aaa.si.edu)’

At one point during the interview, Stout references the teaching of Hans Hofmann.


“He had a very explicit philosophy of what painting is, and the means for that. It wouldn’t matter if he were talking about a Picasso or a Piero della Francesca - the same thing applied, whether it was a completely abstract Kandinsky or a Giotto ”…At bottom, the painters problem is the business of the flat surface, two dimensions, and you have to imply three dimensions. You don’t make three dimensions. You have to adapt, you have to allude to the third dimension. You do it through various dynamic means, from variations in colour, to overlapping planes. It applies in Japanese or Chinese Art or 14th century, or 20th century art”.

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