Stan: All right, Marshall. Marshall: All right. Stan: It's time for you to sing a song about
me going to the bathroom... Marshall: - you go to the bathroom... You go do that thing, you go to the bathroom
and just let Marshall sing... [Intro] Stan: Marshall, I’m back. Marshall: Hi Stan. Stan: Hi. Marshall: I’m getting kind of eager to go
for this topic. What did we - what did you title? Did you title this podcast something? I titled it something and we might have given
it two different titles. Stan: I called it Expressive drawing, what
did you call it? Marshall: I called it Abstract Expressionism. Stan: Okay... Marshall: Do you have a lot to say about expressive
drawing, abstract expressionism or whatever we titled this? Stan: I have some stuff to say but - well,
I’m hoping to have more of a conversation, see where it leads. Marshall: I’m ready for this conversation. I’ve been thinking about it the last day. Stan: Okay, so first of all, is there any
difference between expressive drawing and abstract expression - expressionism? Marshall: Yeah, yeah. Stan: Yeah? Tell me. Marshall: Yeah, there is. Stan: What is it. Marshall: There's two things we've got to
deal with here; one is that from an art historical point of view, abstract expressionism is a
specific movement that got named in the 1940s but it has roots well before that in other
artists which we can talk a little a bit about that. I don't know that either one of us is prepared
to talk about this from an art historical point of view. Stan: No [Laughter]. I’m asking you about what it is. Marshall: But because there are - there are
art historians in our audience and I’m around college professors who know a lot about this
and they know how little I know about it, we should at least acknowledge that there
is a difference between the art historical movements that get these labels of abstract
art, non-objective art, expressionism, abstract expressionism, I think those distinctions
should be made somewhere here early on. Stan: Okay. Marshall: And then, then generalize the term. Stan: Okay, so tell me what you know about
the specific movement of abstract expressionism. Marshall: Okay, and I’ll try to keep this
to about two minutes. Stan: Okay. Marshall: It was named in the 1940s after
World War 2 and the most famous abstract expressionist who everybody knew who Jackson Pollock was
and that's in New York and the U.S, but the roots of abstract expressionism go back into
Austrian artists like Oskar Kokoschka, if I’m pronouncing his name correctly. Stan: Oh my god, do you - okay, first of all,
I want to stop you. Do you know what Kokoschka means? Marshall: No. Stan: In Russian? Marshall: No. Stan: It means poop... Marshall: Does it really? Stan: Kaka, Kokoschka. Marshall: Is that where the term comes from? Stan: I don't know, but I assume his name
isn't spelled K-A-K, it's K-O? Marshall: K-O-K-O-S-C-H-K-A, yeah. Stan: But it's pronounced Kakaschka, right? Marshall: I don't know. Stan: I think. Okay, anyway, sorry for that side trip. Marshall: If you look up his work, he really
breaks the rules of traditional realism as a number of those artists did. German expressionists in film also - Fritz
Lang, F.W. Murnau... The most famous German expressionist film
is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and it's characterized by not realistic sets but really warped, distorted,
frightening sets and maybe we should make a distinction here. You know, one of the greatest roots is Russian. Kandinsky is almost the father of abstract
art. Do you know anything about him? Stan: Is he the one that drew the black square? Marshall: No, that's - you're probably thinking
of Mondrian - well, there were a whole bunch of these people. Mondrian evolved into abstract expressive
- abstract art, John Canaday would have made a distinction that abstract art can be representational,
but when it becomes entirely non-representational where there's no object to be named, he called
it non-objective art. Stan: Okay. Marshall: And artists like Mondrian evolved
into that, Kandinsky evolved into that. Who was another one? Rothko - Mark Rothko evolved into that. Stan: Okay, Marshall, I’m starting to get
confused - can you simplify it even down for me? My hamster brain right now is overloaded. Simplify this - simplify this for me as if
I’m - as if I am Stan. [Laughter] Marshall: Yeah. I apologize. I did exactly the thing that teachers do at
their worst, which is just lamb base a whole bunch of names. Stan: I don't even know what this is yet and
you're telling me five people that do it. Okay... Marshall: Okay, let me explain. Stan: Yeah. Around the late 19th century in particular
with van Gogh... He's doing observational art but he's making
it wilder, more emphasis on the lines and the way he puts down the lines in a manic
fury quite expressive emotionally in the technique. Well, that started to get more and more picked
up by other artists and a Russian artist named Kandinsky at some point saw a piece of his
work - he was a remarkable painter - he saw it at a certain angle in his apartment in
a certain light where he saw that just the abstract design - I think he used the word
had such splendor that it reminded him of a fairy tale and he thought "Why not just
pursue the abstract design and make that the art?" this was in some ways - in a major way,
revolutionary in the 20th century to just dispense with subject matter altogether and
do this as abstract design. And then by the time Jackson Pollock came
along and started taking it to absurd extremes where you're just doing drip painting and
randomness and chance and all that kind of thing, it really took as a movement. Does that help? Stan: It does, but I guess I still don't know
the difference between abstract art and abstract expressionism or is that the same thing and
it's just a longer version of the same word or the same movement? Marshall: Here's the main thing I’m doing
- Stan: Yeah. Marshall: I’m covering for the fact that
I’m not an art historian and that there are people who really know the nuances of
these terms, but we do know this - when abstract expressionism took as a movement, everybody
knew it and made fun of it and the most - I mean, the people who didn't revere it, the
most common thing was "That's art? My kid could do that". Stan: Right. Marshall: And so, that split in preference. Stan: Well, isn't that the point, though? Isn't that kind of the point - your kid can
do it? Marshall: No, I don't know about that. Stan: It's not like to show off how good you
are as a craftsman, it's more about feeling... Kids have feelings too, right? It's like about expressing just something
beyond the craft or beyond - Marshall: Beyond controlled craft and realism? Stan: Right, yeah, control - that's a good
word. Marshall: Yeah. Stan: Where you know, a kid - it's actually
more impressive that an adult can do it [Laughter], right? Marshall: Yeah. Stan: Because kids naturally would kind of
do that, right? When a child holds a crayon for the first
time, they naturally just kind of express whatever they're feeling at the moment, right? Marshall: Yeah. Stan: You don't have to teach them that but
an adult feels weird doing that. Marshall: Yes, but that still doesn't quite
hold because Mondrian's work was very controlled, absolutely non-objective, what you would call
abstract and very precise and controlled. So, the definition gets wide. Hey, you know what, we better do. We'd better just move away from abstract expressionism
as a movement and move to what you're talking about because to me, the value of expressionism
- Stan: Okay, now what's expressionism? You just separated that. Marshall: Yes. Stan: So, what to use expressionism? Marshall: We've got two words here - Stan:
Okay. Marshall: Abstract would mean different from
representational realism. Stan: Okay, so then when you say "expressionism"
and you don't include the word "abstract" in there you're saying that it can be representational
expressionism? Marshall: That's right. Stan: Okay, I got it. Marshall: And expressionism, which can be
representational, it could even - I don't want to get too nuanced here - expressionism
is something that what you were addressing is that once you learn craft, you start to
submit to rules and logic and form and traditions and forget what a child knows, which is that
"I want it to be this way and I have a mood right now and my mood affects this". That to me is closer to the spirit of expressionism
and that's what I get excited about because that's what can help art students. Hey, you know, studying abstract expressionism
- abstraction and expressionism, studying it as an artist is hardly necessary for abstract
expressionists because they already know that they don't have subject matter. So, they've got to make this painting work
on its own terms. The people who I think get the most value
out of the lessons from these artists are the realists because of the temptation to
rely on subject matter as opposed to the other thing that is at the core of the basic elements
of the painting; how they are arranged as an abstract. So, that's where I want to go with this. I know we spent - I spent way more than two
minutes... Stan: Well, I think we got there, we're good. Marshall: We got there, okay. Stan: We got there, okay. Marshall: Why don't we have you ask questions
so that you can guide me because right now my mind is racing all around to what I should
qualify and what I neglected to mention. Stan: Well, this makes me think about my experience
with this, and to me it feels like a problem and I’ll get to in a second - and I think
that maybe a lot of our audience can relate to this as well because so much of what we
kind of talk about is craft and study and being disciplined and like you know, realistic
stuff, like the academic training. It all kind of points towards the same thing
which is trying to represent reality as much as possible and staying true to nature, that
kind of thing, right? Most of our audience is probably kind of headed
in that direction. Marshall: Yeah, I think so because the term
Draftsmen alludes to classic drafting skills, orthography and perspective and those kind
of things, yeah. Stan: So, the problem that I feel a lot is
this fear of being inaccurate, right? Again, I think a lot of our audience probably
can relate to this [Laughter], I see it all the time - people are worried about being
inaccurate, which is good for academic training, right? The goal is to be as accurate as possible,
to get your proportions right, to study your anatomy so you know how it works so that you're
accurate with the way you're depicting the forms. And this fear of like being judged for not
doing it correctly the way it is in reality I think is what holds me back from being more
expressive because of that very rigorous training I went through to focus on accuracy that now
it's just like ingrained. It's so deeply ingrained as a pattern of my
thought process when I create to just be accurate. It's so difficult for me to relax and like
let go of that and be more expressive. Marshall: Stan, I think what you just described
is one of the most common phenomena of people who get well trained in their craft is that
we get too well trained in our craft and forget that there's more that it's supposed to be
a vehicle for something else. Let me tell you what a fellow teacher - he
was my teacher actually who I admired very much for his expressivity... He did just great work, Bob Miller, and I
said "If you had four years with an ideal student, say at the age of 18, and you're
going to train them for four years to make them the best they can be, what would you
do?" he said "I would spend the first year teaching
them the craft", that's anatomy and perspective and rendering and control of the lines and
all that, "I’d spend the second year teaching them to forget all that and draw like a kid
and then I’d spend the third and fourth year teaching them to fuse the two, to be
working with both". Now, that may - that four-year program - I
wrote that down and I’ve been thinking about it ever since that it might be better to just
start the fusion a little earlier but still his concern - this is an old guy who knew
a lot about how to train artists - trained one of my friends really well in expressivity,
that was the big balance is don't forget to be a kid once you've learned to be a grown-up. Stan: Yeah, this kind of relates to what I
said in last week's episode or maybe a few weeks ago where I was talking about how at
the Russian Academy you know, while they're training, they're trained to be really accurate,
all that stuff and then when they're done, it's like 'okay now, let's move on from these
exercises and let's not create art', and so they usually - I don't know if usually but
a lot of times they'll go away from being realistic and more expressive. Marshall: Yeah. Stan: I remember when I visited the Repin
Academy, I don't know how long ago - six, seven years ago? Eight years ago? I saw there was - there was like separate
exhibits and in one room, it was like the post graduates, right? It was people after they graduated and I was
walking through - I didn't know that this was people that already graduated and I was
like "Ooh, these are rough... What is this?" Marshall: Huh... Stan: Right? And then - and then I went into the next room
and it was like the students at the time and I was like "Oh my god, this stuff is awesome!",
it was like, it's beautiful. And then I was told like "Oh, well, those
are the ones that graduated". I was like "Oh, what's up with that?" it's
like well, they're trying to forget, like they don't want to do that anymore [Laughter]. Marshall: Your bias was toward the ones that
displayed more skill? Stan: Yeah, yeah. They showed off their skill. They were practicing the skill to try to you
know, grow it. Whereas when they're done, they try to forget
it and work on something else, right? Marshall: Yeah. Stan: It's kind of like what you just said,
like the first year you learn the craft, the second year, you learn to forget the craft
- I guess there they spend four years learning the craft and then when they get out, they
learn to forget it on their own. Marshall: Yeah. Andrew Wyeth who emphasized in one of the
Thomas Hoving interviews that he did not want his work to be just realistic, he wanted it
to be abstractly exciting as well as realistic and he said he strives for that balance. And yet, somewhere later in his life, he said
that when he looked back on his work, the thing that he didn't like was subject matter. He said there was too much of it which means
that he was so concerned with subject matter that apparently he felt like he went overboard
with making it too realistic. Stan: Yeah and I hate to constantly bring
up Fechin - well, actually, no, I don't hate it at all, I love it. Marshall: I don't mind that you bring up Fechin
over and over because people don't know about him and he was such a great artist, yeah. Stan: Yeah, top three ever in my opinion,
but I think he's like - to me he's like as close to the perfect balance of those two
as it gets, to me. I don't know if I’ve ever seen anything
closer where - he has enough abstract qualities in his art but they're still very much representational
of reality. Marshall: Yeah. Stan: And the abstract qualities of it are
just so attractive. Marshall: I agree. Stan: And it doesn't even matter that there's
also a human there being represented and actually just in a very beautiful way. Even if you take away the abstract qualities
of it, it's still just like a really well drawn human, right? There's still a lot of accuracy to it, right? He's not breaking things, he's designing them
and pushing them so far - much farther than most artists, most realistic artists or most
representational artist but they don't break. He pushes them so far but they still don't
break, right? And that ability to do that is just so amazing
to me. Marshall: You're right, he abstracts. Stan: You know, one thing I was thinking about
for like - like how can people that were trained in this more academic approach learn to be
more expressive and let go of this? I was just thinking about this for myself
and I thought of the whole improv you know, "yes and" - Marshall: That maxim of respond
with "yes and"... Stan: Yes and, so, as you're drawing - and
this could just be more of like an exercise, not for professional work- it's just everything
is "yes and" to yourself and just keep practicing - don't erase, just keep going. Everything that you do is correct. Just imagine, everything is correct - nothing
is wrong and you just keep going and you try to adjust based on what you've already done. So, instead of thinking it's wrong, you think
"okay now, like what I just did, how can - I how can I keep going with this to make it
good?" if it still looks ugly. Marshall: So if I steer it wrong, how can
I steer - Stan: It's not wrong, exactly. Marshall: Right, and if I steer wrong again
- right, you shouldn't even use the word "wrong", but if I steered away from what I intended,
how can I turn it into something... Stan: You will most likely usually steer in
a direction you didn't intend - Marshall: Yeah. Stan: You try to enjoy the journey [Laughter]. You try to be okay with seeing where it goes. It's kind of - I mean, it's like you just
have to let go of the idea of accuracy because the whole thing of like this is - I steered
wrong, it's all based on the belief of something even capable of being wrong or inaccurate,
right? Marshall: Which means there's got to be a
right way. Stan: Exactly. You don't think about whether this is right
or wrong, you just kind of go along for the ride and you see where it goes. It's like if you go for a walk and you're
not - your purpose isn't to get somewhere specific, it's just to kind of enjoy the outside,
think about stuff, just walk, right? If you get lost or if you're not really sure
- you've gone somewhere and you're like "oh, hmm" but you just like keep going, it doesn't
matter, you're just gonna enjoy walking and then eventually you'll recognize something,
you'll be like "okay, I gotta go that way" and then you'll steer back and come back home,
but you'll still enjoy that walk. That happens to me all the time, actually. I’ll sometimes intentionally just kind of
like go somewhere new based on what I feel and then I don't know where I am, but I just
keep walking and eventually I’ll recognize something and I don't think that where I’m
walking is wrong because I’m not trying to get somewhere, I’m just walking, right? So I hope that kind of makes sense. It's like just draw, just draw, just do some
stuff and maybe that'll teach us to let go and be accurate in our normal work where we're
actually trying to produce something intentionally that has a goal. Marshall: Yeah, it's a different spirit than
trying too hard. It's the value - part of what you mentioned
there, is the value of unstructured time. The value of exploring. It's an experimental mode. In fact, one of the key words in the expressive
drawing class that I teach at the community college is experimenting. Stan: You teach an expressive drawing class? Marshall: I teach a class, I’ve done it
several times... Stan: Marshall, how many classes do you teach? [Laughter] Marshall: Lots of them. Stan: You're always mentioning this class
you teach. Marshall: Yeah, I’ve taught about 20 different
titles of semester course. Hey, the expressive drawing class - Stan:
Yeah, tell me more about this - what's your structure of this class? Marshall: The first half of the semester is
to experiment, experiment, experiment with uncontrollable media. Stan: Oh, interesting. Marshall: Like wet media that you can't really
know what it's going to do because water has its own personality, with randomness, with
things where you just mess about with this medium and make random marks and then look
at them and respond to them and more, a half a semester on that and we continue with that
through the end of the semester. But in that second half of the semester, we
use some of those expressive experiments to conjure, to look at them and say "Do they
give me ideas for representational pieces so that I’m starting not on a foundation
of carefulness and tightness, I’m starting on a foundation of freedom and exploration"
where you do a hundred pieces or more that you lose control over but then you say "There's
accidents that happen in this. There's things I would have never planned
that really look good". I had students find - I had one student in
particular, in fact it was Christina Cornett who - she was already a professional by that
time. She took the class and she helped evolve her
style by that half a semester of experimenting. It was that unstructured time that meandering,
let's play, there's no right or wrong and that I could do this and she came up with
characters based on the randomness. It's also turned into a very popular way to
do character designs, right? You start with a shape, you start with a random
shape, you start with a blob, you look at it and see if you could turn it into a character. That's sort of the structure of the semester. First half is absolutely experimenting and
the more you can relinquish control, the better. Second half is to continue doing that but
also in the process see if there are some of these things that you might segue into
representationalism. Stan: Yeah, that's kind of like you go for
a walk and you know, you don't care where you're going and you end up just stumbling
upon a new burger joint that you end up going to every day because you ended up liking it
so much [Laughter]. Marshall: Yes, that's right. And I’m also aware, just in having said
this that there are people who would say yeah, but once you find that burger joint and you
say "I’m going to go into this", you're turning into a hardening shell of tradition
and there are people I think who are so committed - Stan: Wait, what? What do you mean? How how's that hardening into a shell? Marshall: Because now you're going to do it
repeatedly and you're going to lose the sense of wonder. Stan: Yeah, and some things will stick. It's not like you can go on a walk to discover
new things that you never end up doing ever again. Like the point of discovering new things is
to discover the things you really love and keep those. Marshall: In yours and my opinion. Stan: Well, exactly. Marshall: The reason I mention it - Stan:
What? [Laughter] Wait, what? Marshall: There are people who are so committed
to abstract expressionism as a philosophy that just to take the second half of the semester
and segway into representationalism means you're missing the whole point. You've gotta get your subject matter in there,
don't you? Gotta get your representationalism in there
and there are people with that bias who feel like that you've compromised the whole point
which is to get rid of the subject matter and make it work on abstract terms... Like do you really have to put lyrics to the
song? Stan: No, you don't have to put lyrics, but
if you discover - what I’m saying is not about adding representational elements to
it, I’m saying if you go on this journey and you discover something that you like,
you can keep that thing that you like. That thing that you like might not be something
representational but you might discover a new technique for splattering paint on the
canvas that looks really cool. Marshall: Yeah. Stan: That could stay - you can keep that,
be like "I just really like the way it looks" and I’ll use that whenever I feel like I
want it or the way - whenever I feel like bringing that out, right? You can still use that to express. Like there's nothing that - it's not like
whenever you're doing expressive work, you're always doing something you've done before
- you've always held a brush in that way and for some reason you stuck with it, right? You can't possibly not repeat things. You are always repeating things that for some
reason you thought worked, you liked. You're not gonna hold the brush differently
every single time. Marshall: Yeah, okay. Here's where I think we need to start going
back to some structure of what we're discussing which is that when we're talking - we know
what abstract is - abstract is - actually, let me take another minute on abstract because
abstract - Stan: Abstraction, yes. Marshall: -is ironically the most concrete
art of all because the things on the canvas do not pretend to be something else as a representational
illusion. They are yellow rectangles, black outlines
and red squiggles. So, you've got this irony that abstract art
is the most concrete of all because it just is what it is. And there's a spectrum from the stuff that's
entirely abstract to the stuff that is representational and looks like a window into a world and the
more we move in the direction of abstract, the more people tend to call it stylized,
like a cartoon. Stan: Okay, yeah. Marshall: A lot of Fechin's appeal is how
he stylizes the surface. Now, that's the abstract part. The expression part - what is it that we're
expressing? I think there's two things that we would express
in art, one is experience and experience would be mostly with subject matter. In the 19 - early 19 - early 20th century,
1930s in particular, there were these wonderful painters, many of them in New York - George
Bellows and Reginald Marsh who did city people doing city things, really evocative of their
experience of living in cities. That would be - I would say subject matter
tends to express our Idaho childhood or the African city we lived in but the other thing
that we express is more difficult, it's emotion and somebody said that a line is a seismograph
- a line on paper is a seismograph of human emotion. Ah... Stan: What's a seismograph? Marshall: It's a device for measuring earthquakes. Stan: Oh, okay. Marshall: If this is a jittery line, it might
be because I’m irritated or fearful, if this is a lyrical flowing line, it might be
because I’ve got a certain mood that is calling that up. And so, the analogies to music may be the
most useful analogies between pictorial art and music because lyrics in a song are like
subject matter - "oh, I know what the song's about, that he's in love. He's got a broken heart". If you put the lyrics in a foreign language,
you don't know what the song is about for subject matter but you still might get an
idea of what the song is about because of the vibe of the rhythms and the lilt. And then if you take the lyrics away altogether,
you have pure abstract music but nobody's gonna say that their favorite music without
lyrics isn't expressive. It's expressive in that the composer - Aaron
Copeland made a big deal of this in his What to Listen For in Music... The composer has a specific intent, an emotional
intent to evoke a mood and the listener who likes it and listens to it over and over,
to them, it's evocative. It does conjure up that mood. This is what all pictorial art should do. When I use the word "should", it's what all
pictorial art can do. Even though abstract expressionism in the
20th century was a major revolution in the value of art and the perception of the world,
it was nothing new at all because abstract expressionism has always been around. When you look at Islamic art where they did
not represent the nameable world because of one of those ten commandments, they spent
centuries evolving designs and tapestries Marshall: Two things and the first one is
less than a minute - maybe 30 seconds. Stan: Okay. Marshall: Learn a little bit about the movement. Learn a little bit about 20th century and
what happened with the changing perceptions; cubism, fovism, futurism - there's a whole
bunch - even surrealism because surrealism had a quality of take the rules of the rational
mind away. Stan: Yeah, and study it with an open mind. Marshall: Yeah. Stan: I feel like a lot of people approach
those different genres as if they're like competing characters or something. Like "oh, I’m only realism" and then they
look at the other artists that did other styles or you know other types of art and it's like
you got to be against that or for something but you like - if you just study everything
with an open mind and see that they're all just artists doing something, you could learn
from them, something from them. You don't necessarily have to learn how to
paint from them but you maybe learn a little bit about how to think or how to feel or whatever. Marshall: The best book I know on it that
opened my mind to it was The Story of Art by Gombrich. Stan: Who's Gombrich? He's an author? Marshall: Yeah, he's the author. It's a long read but it's an easy read. It's very geared toward people who don't know
anything about art history. Stan: So it's geared for stupid people like
me... Marshall: Not only does he not complicate
things, he treats it as a story so that one thing leads to another and then people felt
this way and then there was too much of this and there was that... So, he takes you with a through line all the
way into the 20th century. The first time I sat in art history classes
trying to understand abstract expressionism and abstract art and it just - I was 19 years
old and I wanted to be a representational artist, it bored me until I got interested
in Kandinsky. I chased Kandinsky for a while but I still
didn't understand it. Kandinsky wrote two books - Point And Line
to Plane and Concerning The Spiritual in Art and I got both Dover versions, read one of
them and could not get through the other one because it was too philosophical. But Gombrich, I keep wanting to say Arthur
Gombrich, E.H. Gombrich, I’m not even sure what his first
name is... Stan: I just looked him up - Ernst Gombrich. Marshall: Gombrich makes it really easy for
you, and I think you'll enjoy it too. It's a mind-opening read. Stan: The beginning of the description of
this is "The story of art, one of the most famous and popular books on art ever written"
[Laughter]. Marshall: And rightly so. Stan: That's okay, great, I need to read this
then. Marshall: Yeah, you'll enjoy it. It can be a couple months of reading. Stan: Why doesn't this get passed around in
all the circles online. It's all you know, Loomis Bridgman - you know,
it's the same five books that everybody talks about. Marshall: Let me tell you why - I know this
from being in colleges for almost 40 years - there is a division between the people who
want to be mere illustrators and comic book artists and entertainment artists and the
pop stuff and the rabble and the ones who really care about the evolution of art with
a capital 'A'. As much as you might wish there wasn't a division,
there is a division. I’ve watched it happen in art departments
where there's almost land mining each other's classrooms and - Stan: That's what I’m talking
about... Marshall: The people on one side don't even
know it's confirmation bias as you've talked about, the ones on one side are never going
to study it... Everyone's on this side are never gonna st
- but if there could be crossover, that's a really good book for crossover. Simon Schama's - do you know Simon Schama. Stan: No, how do you spell Schama? Marshall: S-C-H-A-M-A. Oh don't miss his videos, The Power of Art. They are so involving and intense. There is not a single one of them that will
bore you and they'll open your eyes up to several key artists in art history with opinions. Simon has opinions. Stan: Does he have like episodes on different
artists? Marshall: Yeah. Stan: Okay, cool. How many does he - does he have like a giant
series or is it just -? Marshall: I’ve only seen eight of them. There were eight in the - I think there were
eight in the DVD series that I bought right when it was new. Stan: And is it all the like most famous artists
from the 20th century that you hear about? Pollock and Rothko? Marshall: No. Stan: No, okay. Marshall: No, he goes back to previous centuries. He's got one on Bernini. Stan: Oh, cool. Marshall: Oh, I love the one on Bernini. Stan: Cool. Well, I like videos. Marshall: These are - if you sit down and
give them one hour attention, you will not be disappointed. Stan: Okay, what was your favorite one? Well, which one should I start with? Marshall: I think the Bernini one. Stan: Bernini one, okay. Marshall: It's where he made an analogy between
physical ecstasy and spiritual ecstasy and its manifestation in Bernini's ecstasies... [Chuckles] Stan: Simon Schuma's Power of Art
Bernini, that's what it's called. Marshall: Oh, that's all it's called? Okay. Stan: Yeah. Marshall: Does it have any synopsis after
it? Stan: It's so slow and they just played 30
seconds of music after everything [Laughter]. Marshall: Yeah. Stan: Come on, start talking already! Marshall: All right, anyway - Stan: Okay,
you were just talking about ecstasy from the very beginning. Marshall: Okay. So, Gombrich and Schama both are good introductions
but there are many others. Ask your art history teachers and tell them
you're easily bored and that you want the stuff that's going to help you. Now that we've spent 15 minutes on something
that I said it would take one minute on - Stan: Isn't that - don't you expect that at this
point, Marshall? Marshall: Yeah. Stan: Why don't you just always say "I just
need 15 minutes on this". Marshall: Yeah, and then I can surprise you
by spending 14. Stan: Oh, exactly. Marshall: Okay, that was the first thing - get
to know a little about what people call abstract art, non-objective art, abstract expressionism. Stan: We're almost an hour in, that was the
first - how many things we got? Marshall: The second one is the one that is
the most valuable besides knowing it historically... Some people who don't know anything about
the history of this could be the ones who do it best because they've got another thing
and that's what I aim at as a teacher, not to teach art history but to train artists
to bring out their best talent. And I found two ways to train that are balancing
skills - I call them memories and reveries, we use them in the composition class. And memories - memory drawing is simply Nicolaides
exercise number 14 which he calls The Daily Composition. He says it's the most important thing in the
whole book of the natural way to draw. So if you want the one most important thing
is to take 15 minutes to draw something that you remember that you experienced and to do
this every day and there's a page detailing in it. Stan: How long do you spend on this drawing? Marshall: No more than 15 minutes. Stan: Okay. Marshall: And don't try to do them well, just
try to do them because it is an exercise to get your mind recalling experiences and imprinting
them better when you're living your life. Stan: And what does he mean by "don't try
to do them well"? You can judge if it's good or not but if it
sucks, keep going anyway is that. Marshall: Yeah. I need to make a distinction - Stan: Okay. Marshall: Nicolaides has an exercise called
memory drawing that is not what I’m talking about. The one I’m talking about that I call memories
is what he calls The Daily Composition which is a drawing from memory of an experience
you had. Stan: Daily Composition. Marshall: Yeah, exercise 14. And he says "These compositions do not have
to be right, they can be all wrong" and then in all caps "THE IMPORTANT THING IS TO DO
THEM, 365 of them between today and this date next year". Stan: What if it's a leap year? Marshall: Well, see, he's not accounting for
everything, we're supposed to say - Stan: Agrrr - now I’m confused. Marshall: Yes and 366 every four years. It will be helpful if you keep this up for
a year and it will be twice as helpful if you keep it up for two years and so on. Now, that is - that is one exercise which
is about drawing on experience and I add to it, I suggest that students limit these drawings
to line only so that we simplify it - I’m just trying to get a line drawing of something
I remember, so they are a record of experience that is only trying to remember the experience
and then later potentially transformed into a whole new compositional treatment. Stan: I’m going to do one real quick and
you tell me if I did it wrong or right. I’m not going to spend 15 minutes on it
but I just want to see if I’m even going in the right direction of what this exercise
is supposed to be, okay? Marshall: Yeah. Stan: Because I have some - I might do some
things and you'd be like "no no no no, don't put it in a rectangle". Marshall: You do it and tune me out - Stan:
I have the right spirit, if I have the right spirit of this exercise. Marshall: Yeah. Stan: Okay. Marshall: You do it, tune me out and I’m
gonna talk to our audience. Stan right now, who was earlier mentioned
that this business of right and wrong and should is something that can be set aside
for creative processes and now he is concerned with whether he's gonna do [Laughter] his
memory drawing, rightly or wrongly. Oh, isn't it delightful. Stan: And I’m not worried about any kind
of accuracy or anything being wrong... I could totally see already. I’m like "oh god, this is bad, this is wrong"
and I’m like "you know what? Shut up". Marshall: Turn it off! Stan: It is not wrong at all, it's perfect. Marshall: Turn it off! Spin around! Smile! Embrace! Say "it's good to see you". Stan: Okay and this is this is from memory
but it's a very um, recent memory. Marshall: I’m so glad you're doing it. Stan: Yeah. Marshall: - look at me still talking when
there's science to do. Stan: Feeling this out, okay? Marshall: Okay. Let's see. Stan: Okay. Marshall: Yes but you did one of the things
that I said "let's leave it out". Stan: Shading... I shaded, right? Marshall: Yeah. But that's exactly it - Stan: But you said
that I could - I could say "fill this in", didn't you say that? Marshall: Yes, but my recommendation as part
of training - we're training an experience and emotion while all we're dealing right
now is experience- here's what I saw, I’m trying to recall something accurately, do
it with lines. Stan: Accurately? Wait, what do you mean "accurately"? Marshall: That's somebody in front of a window
in a room? Stan: That's you [Laughter]. Marshall: Oh, yes of course. Stan: Somebody in a [Laughter] in front of
a window. I love how you just described yourself. Marshall: Hey, just go read the Nicolaides
page detailing all this. I recommend keeping it to line only and here's
why - Stan: Okay. Marshall: Later - Stan: I more expressive? Am I not supposed to like lift my pencil off
the page? Marshall: No, that's not important. Stan: No, it doesn't matter? Okay. Marshall: There is one struggle and that is
to within that rectangle or on that page, get a line representation of something you
saw this week, something mundane, something that was in your field of vision. It is an exercise not something that has to
be done right or wrong but you're trying to get it representational. Stan: Oh, I am trying to make it rep - I’m
trying - I’m just trying to like draw some funny shapes [Laughter]. I’m doing this wrong, Marshall. Marshall: You're doing it wrong because you're
yanking the rug out from under my entire training thing of the memories and reveries. I haven't even gotten to reveries yet. Stan: Okay. Marshall: Memories exercises the part of your
brain that recalls and tries to get it accurate enough - correct enough but to struggle with
it. Stan: I’m doing this totally wrong then
because - Marshall: Yeah, because you're turning it into a composition, you're jumping ahead. Stan: Yeah, I’m trying - ohhhh, that's - okay,
I’m thinking of just like shape design and stuff. Marshall: Don't think of shape design, think
of who was where, what, there were several people over there by that counter, there were
a couple people putting food in their plate, there were two others sitting down, one of
them looked bored... Stan: But if I try to be as accurate as possible,
I’m just going to start like constructing things and figuring out the perspective of
stuff. Marshall: Which is okay, but in service of
getting on that paper, the thing you remember from earlier this week, 15 minutes not to
do it well but just to do it the best you can over and over to exercise a muscle to
get it strong "oh, I’m doing these jumping jacks but they're not - they're not creating
any electricity. I’m doing these jumping jacks but they aren't
really like a dance. I’m doing these jumping jacks but nobody's
recording them. I’m doing these jumping -". We're doing
the jumping jacks so that you can get exercise. This is an exercise in recall. Stan: Yeah. Okay. Marshall: I’m limiting it to lines so that
we don't turn it into a decorative composition. Forget about making it look good. Stan: I did another one. Marshall: That's better. That's the idea. Yeah, that is the idea. Stan: But I was trying to follow that thing
that he put in - the thing you read, his quote he was saying "don't worry if it's right or
wrong", and so I’m just like "okay, I don't care if it's wrong". But now you're saying you got to try to make
it accurate, which is like well then you have to worry if it's right or wrong. Marshall: Yeah. I am not teaching it exactly the way that
Nicolaides did. Stan: [Laughter] But it seems like too contradictory. Marshall: He does later - he does later make
you evolve the exercise to where you have to go back and compare so that you divided
that rectangle to where there was a certain amount of bookshelf space and a certain amount
of window and you're trying to remember 'what was it? How much was the ratio?' Stan: I wasn't trying to remember exactly
the overlap of the win - in fact, I got it wrong but I didn't care. Marshall: But then you notice it next time,
it is a pattern of every day drawing something you recall and trying to get it representational
of the thing you saw. I call them memories and I say "limit them
in a line so that you can put the tone in later when you're in a creative mode". Shall we move to exercise number two? Stan: Wait, how many exercises are there? Marshall: Two. Stan: Okay, yes. Let's move on to exercise number two. Marshall: Exercise number two I call reveries. These are abstract inventions composed within
a rectangle that you do for the joy of them. Stan: Sounds like what I just did. Marshall: Well, you blended the two which
is the whole point of this is to separate the two. Stan: Got it. Marshall: You can do them in response to the
names of emotions, you can do them in response to music - oh, that's a whole thing to pursue
- to listen to a piece of music and do a little abstract expressionist design within a rectangle. Stan: Oh, so these don't have to be representational,
these could be shapes that do - that mean nothing? Marshall: They are best not representational. Stan: And can they be tonal shapes? Marshall: They can be tonal shapes, they can
be memories - Stan: Can it be colored? Can I do this with oil paint? Marshall: Yes. Stan: Oh god, that sounds so much fun [Laughter]. I’m gonna do that after this. Marshall: The memories one is to hold you
accountable to some kind of objective criteria which is that I saw this. Memories are what I saw, reveries are what
I want to see and the only constraint we put on them is try to make them not subject matter
representational. Try to make riffs on circles, riffs on cactus
shapes, riffs on the way that music - oh, when you do it in expressive drawing, one
of the things we do is we listen to short bits of music without lyrics and do reveries
to them. And then when you've played Gregorian chants
and then polyphonic choral music and then Led Zeppelin and you put the drawings up on
the - put these reveries up on a wall to look at everybody's, you can tell which is which
style of music. Now, this is a highly creative exercise that
children do naturally. You can tell a kid to draw something that
sounds like this music and they will run with it, so we've got two different parts of the
brain that we're training and we're training them separately; one more factual, one more
fanciful, one representational, one abstract, one what you've seen, one what you want to
see and then we're exercising both sides of the brain and these are only exercises. However, the memories ones if they're done
in line only can be looked at later in a different frame of mind and say "What if I darkened
all that area and clumped it together? What if I fragmented this and started to put
light on there that breaks it up?" and you can take these memories which are like the
genre painting of Dutch masters who would just do a woman pouring drink out of a picture. You've got something that's mundane but as
you study composition and master composition, you can take the mundane and bring wonderful
patterns to that line drawing. So, the memory drawings which were only an
exercise can turn into finished pieces if you're inclined to and then the reveries,
the reveries - I love doing reveries. I want to spend - I’m going to teach expressive
drawing for the rest of my life as long as I have opportunities to, just for the opportunity
to take an hour and do little doodles within a rectangle and say "hmm, oh, ohh, hey, uhh,
wow!" and if they don't work but you do a hundred of them, there's going to be some
in there that are so you. They are expressive of your experiences, of
your - of your visual biases and of your emotions. Stan: Can you show me one of your reveries? Marshall: Yeah, I’ll be back in one minute. Stan: Got it. There he is. Marshall: Stan, my sketchbooks tend to be
about 60 or 70% reveries. You've seen - Stan: Really? Marshall: Yeah, you've seen some of these
before. Stan: I usually just see weird things, but
they're all - they're usually representational things. They're usually something real. See, those are - those are real things. That looks like a cell. Marshall: Well, the reason that they're real
things is because I know how to draw spheres and blocks and stuff like that, so I tend
to find three-dimensional forms in there. But enough about my reveries - Stan: Wait,
no, I want to see more reveries, keep going. I’m really curious about these reveries. Marshall: Some of them are not within rectangles. Stan: Okay, let me see those. Marshall: In fact, many of them are not within
rectangles. Stan: Let me see that. Oh yeah, yeah. That's a spherical thing - that doesn't represent
anything real but it's just a blob of stuff - Marshall: Yeah. Stan: -but it's still the same concept that
- it could be a flat shape that doesn't mean anything or it could be a three-dimensional
shape that doesn't mean anything and it's just a volume that you're designing. Marshall: Yeah. I assign these to the composition students
and some of the composition students do wonderful. Just even in the last few weeks, we've had
a few students that have done wonderful reveries and they've turned into finished compositions. And you say "yeah, but they're abstract". Well, remember, we can take those memories
which are not abstract, they're representational and find abstract patterns in them to turn
them into compositions we like and we can also take some of these reveries that are
purely abstract and see images within them - representational subject matter within them
and now we've got the composition mostly worked out with the mood. So it would be like - one is like taking lyrics
and putting them to music. The other is taking music and imagining lyrics
on it. And so, that's why memories and reveries are
two balancing exercises for composition students to get you strong with both representationalism
and abstraction. Stan: Now I got a question. Marshall: Okay. Stan: Well, first, before my question, I have
another question [Laughter]. Marshall: Go ahead. Stan: My first question is - that second exercise,
reveries, do I also do that one for 356 or 365 or 366 days? Marshall: This is like "do I have to eat food
every day for 365 days?" Stan: No, I’m just saying, the way he prescribes
it, is that you do - Marshall: He doesn't. Stan: Well, he did the first one, he said
365 days. Marshall: He did the first one. The second one is kind of my own invention. Stan: So, this is not a legitimate exercise? Marshall: Yeah, I thought it came from a dead
guy... Stan: Yeah, exactly. The only things that are good are from dead
guys and girls. Marshall: No, I’m sold on this as a dynamic
of training because I’ve been teaching the subject for a long time and this is - one
of them is hard, ones of them are fun, this is a great way to do it. Stan: Okay, got it. Okay, so here's my real question now. Marshall: Okay. Stan: How - after doing this for a year, let's
say, how do I know that it was worth it? Because he says that "it doesn't matter if
it's right or wrong, the whole point is that you do them". Now okay, I did them how do I know if I should
do another year of them? What am I looking for as the cue of this was
successful. Marshall: I think that the only one who can
answer that question is the artist who says - hang on, let me finish. Stan: Okay, how do I judge that? Marshall: You judge it by saying "do I need
this anymore?" and you look at your work and say "it's missing a quality" and then you
look for the prescription - you look for the regimen that will help that. Stan: What is it supposed to help me improve
in? Composition? Marshall: The memories. That one is to train you to notice things
more. Stan: Notice things... Got it. Okay. Marshall: You drew what you remembered being
at the gym or on that walk and you - oh, you struggle with it, then when you go there say
"hey, I didn't notice how -", oh, it's opening your eyes. Stan: And does it also train you to remember
things? Marshall: Yes. Stan: Okay, great, cool, awesome. Okay, that's great. Now what about the second one, how do I know
that - what was this one training me? Marshall: The second one trains you in the
freedom to do whatever you feel like doing within that rectangle knowing that if it doesn't
work, there's no consequences. Stan: So if my fear of being inaccurate gets
less intense after a year of doing this, then this was successful... Marshall: Yes. Well, with that, we're overcoming - we're
overcoming the fear of doing something wrong because I’ve got hundreds of these that
I get to do. Stan, what it really is, it's playing around
with composition without any restraint of subject matter. And therefore, you can see how I compose. My compositions are obvious - Marshall composes
where he packs everything in there that he can pack. If there's anything empty, it has to be filled
and there's a lot of bulbous shapes and that's just the stuff that I’ve found myself drawing
by instinct for years. Somebody called it a visual jungle... There's different ways to describe these things. Describing them metaphorically is good too. Memories and reveries are two exercises that
help balance each other out. They are not the only two exercises in composition
- studying masters and taking photographs are another set that balance each other out
nicely. We're mentioning these because our topic today
was abstract expressionism and when you're doing a memory, you're not trying to do an
abstract expressionist piece, you're trying to do something that is based on reality and
representational, and when you're doing a reverie, you're trying to take the subject
matter out of it as much as you can and just do an abstract expressionist piece. Stan: I think that's why I was confused when
I was trying to do the memory one - I kept trying to add some kind of expressionism in
there because that's what we were talking about. Marshall: Because you weren't paying attention
to what the whole criteria was. Stan: I was paying attention to the episode,
Marshall. Marshall: Thank you, that is more important. Stan: Okay, cool. Okay, how do master studies help you be more
expressive? Marshall: Well, they don't help you be more
expressive, that's - they could if you're if you're studying - Stan: Expressive artists. Right, okay. Marshall: Van Gogh was not called an expressionist
because the term hadn't really been invented that time but van Gogh was a great expressionist
before expressionism. Do you know Käthe Kollwitz work? Stan: Oh, of course, of course, yes. Marshall: Oh, she is one of the greatest expressionists
although I don't know that label is put on her but mainly expressing grief and of the
experience of war. Stan: Yeah, no, I love this. There's - I forgot what this one's called. The one where it's a yellow background and
it's like someone holding a little child or something and it's obviously just so much
pain in there. Marshall: Lots of people losing their family
members, which she did too. Stan: Yeah, I remember seeing that one, I
think it was last year or two years ago and I was - it like - it made me feel like real
emotion which is really rare for me when I see a painting to feel emotion based on what's
happening. I usually just feel like inspired by the craftsmanship
when I look at art, but this one really I was like "oh!", right? Marshall: Yeah. Stan: There's so much - yeah, that's why it's
such good expressionism, huh, because she's expressing a feeling and I feel it too. Marshall: Yes, and - Stan: It's too beautiful. Marshall: It's with the subject matter but
it's also with the treatment of the subject matter; the composition. Stan: Yeah. And it's everything. Marshall: Yeah. They had a show of her work at the Getty just
before the lockdown that I went back to twice to look over those works. They are so moving. And about 30 years ago at L.A county museum
of art, there was a self-portrait. I was walking through the museum and I caught
this woman's face in black and white which was her face about life size and I looked
at that for 10 or 15 minutes to have a good talking to from her to me about life and pain. It was just a really - a resting image and
it was not just because of her face and the subject matter, it was also because she treated
it with a gravity that was emotionally expressive. Stan: Yeah. Everything it seems like - all her art just
seems like there's so much pain. Marshall: There is so much pain but there
was so much pain in her world that that would be an example of expressing experience and
emotion. Stan: Well, cool. That's a great one to leave off of - Marshall:
Realists who want to get good at composition would do well to see every piece metaphorically
as an abstract expressionist piece. Stan: Why don't we do a reverie together. Marshall: Okay. Stan: And that's how we'll end the episode
and then it'll end with the image of the - our two reveries. Why don't we somehow get in sync - no, not
right now, after this - after this. We'll do a real one where we'll spend like
15 minutes on it or something. Marshall: Yeah, okay. Stan: Right? But let's get in sync somehow. We can we can play the same music, we can
think of the same something... You were talking about cacti - cactuses - cactus? Marshall: Yeah. Stan: Yeah. So let's pick something like a cactus and
Gregorian chants [Laughter], you know? Marshall: I’m gonna let you choose the music
and let me choose the phenomena. Stan: Okay. Marshall: I like fruit shapes and lots of
strands going through them. Like wisps of smoke going around things, foreground
and background. Stan: That kind of look like the reverie you
just showed me on the last page. Marshall: Yeah. Stan: So you gonna just use that one... Marshall: I do that all the time. Stan: Oh, no no no no, Marshall, you got - you
have to also get away from your own patterns and just do something different. Marshall: Do I? Stan: Yeah, you just described the reverie
that you just showed me. Marshall: Every one that comes to mind is
one - another one is something with radiating lines out of it. I do a lot of radiating lines. Stan: But stop - okay, I’m picking it. You're just describing your own stuff. I really like the cactus one. Marshall: Okay, then let's do the cactus one. Stan: Okay, cactus one. It's got so many things coming to mind. Okay, and then as far as the music, do you
want to pick the music? I got - Marshall: No, you pick the music. Stan: Okay, fine. Okay, do you know the band Röyksopp? Marshall: No, I don't. Stan: I’ll send you a specific album so
that we're like in sync and on the same sounds. Marshall: Are we gonna do this while we got
the 4k camera on? Stan: No, we don't even have to film it, you
could just do it - Marshall: I would like to do it where we don't - yeah, well we don't
film it. I’d like to do it where I get to go private,
yeah. Stan: Yeah, go private. I don't want to be watched, I want to be able
to let go and just be in the zone on this. Marshall: I like it. Stan: I’m going to do an oil painting. Marshall: I’m going to do a micron or pilot
G2 pin because that's what I’ve been using lately because I like to work small. Stan: Okay Marshall, thank you for your brilliant
lists of things [Chuckles]. Let's reveal what we did or will do, but did,
depending on where you are chronologically at this moment. Marshall: Okay. Stan: Okay, here goes, boom! Marshall: Whoa... Stan: That's yours... Marshall: There we are, that's what we did. Okay, there's the fruit of it. Stan: There's mine right there. That's our stuff. I don't know if we did a good job or not but
there it is. Marshall: But you should go and do better. Stan: Yes, I need to do 364 more of these
or is next - is 2022 a leap year? 2020 was a leap year. Okay Marshall, thank you. This was fun. I actually really enjoyed this episode. Marshall: Thank you. I trust that there was goodness in it. Stan: Hopefully the listeners will also enjoy
it. Marshall: What are we going to have them put
in the comments if anything? Stan: How much they enjoy this episode. Marshall: Yeah, whether you like this episode. That's - Stan: No no no, no, how much they
enjoyed it. Marshall: Oh, how much - yeah, not whether
you - whether - but if liked it - Stan: Oh no, they enjoyed it, they enjoyed it. Marshall: Yeah. Stan: Now tell us how much. From a scale of - Marshall: Nine to ten [Laughter]... Stan: Cool, thank you guys, we'll see you
next week. Marshall: Thank you everybody, bye. Stan: Bye. Marshall: -Look at me still talking when there's
science to do... [Whistling] Look at him still talking and
there's science to do
