The story says that Cézanne was turned down by the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts when he applied for entrance. He kept going, and admired as he was by many of his contemporaries, he only managed to have his first individual exhibition in 1895, when he was fifty-six years old (at the famous Gallerie Vollard, a shop on the Rue Laffitte, in Paris).
In 1999, “Ridea
u, crouchon et compotier”, painted in between 1893 and 1894 was sold for a staggering US$60.5 million. A fitting price for a post impressionist painter considered, by most, as the father of modern painting.
This little, yet powerful story, serves as an appropriate preamble for what I am about to say about the role of criticism into an artist’s development.
Many of my friends have gone through this and I go through it every day. As artists we need the critical view (both positive and negative) of our artistic expression. After all, art is to be viewed by others, not kept between closed doors. Critics are everywhere as each view entails a criticism of some sort (there is even the old show business adage about the fact that “everyone is a critic”). And the fact is that all who participate of the art experience will have an opinion, and if given the chance, will impart their views to whomever wishes to hear them.
And that is fine. Criticism is good. Even criticism generated from greed, envy, bad blood, or even ignorance…it is all good because it allows us to see things from other perspectives than our own. And for an artist, this is like a gold mine. A source of feelings, new to ourselves, that should lead to more creativity.
But as I have said so many times before, the soul of an artist cracks easily, hurts more than most, and heals only with love and kindness.
That is the reason why rejection, because of its harshness, tends to be one of the worst forms of criticism for an artist. It is as valid as many others, but still, it is the most hurtful because, as we tend to be to critical of ourselves and too sensitive for our own good, it feels final, with shades of a dead end and brushstrokes of questions about our own artistic and personal prowess. And so it damages the most.
Yet, rejection is an intricate part of our maturing process, and of becoming deeper and more sensitive artists.
The key is knowing that rejection is never final. It is not even a detour. It is simply a crossroad where we have taken a certain road for the wrong reasons, or too soon for us or for others to understand where we are going. Knowing that simple fact allows us to push into other parallel roads, look for other ways, or review our own reasons so as to find, within ourselves and within others, that little extra quality, emotion, or explanation, that will open a door which now seems closed or open doors we had not considered as unlocked to us before.
Cézanne is a clear example of this because he simply never gave up on his own convictions. Time was never a real issue (otherwise he would have reconsidered his career). He may have modified and changed as time went by, but he never gave up on his idea that what he was doing was what his heart, and soul, were telling him. And that was nothing more, and nothing less, than painting his own path into a new expression of what he saw and felt.
Unfortunately, as happened with him and with so many other artists throughout history, we may not reap all the benefits or the public recognition of our own artistic endeavors. If we are lucky, that may be something that only time will tell. But we must know that for that to happen, the eyes of future critics will have to change, sometimes mature, or in other cases simply open up into seeing our own personal ways of perception as making a difference, or having a peculiarity that future generations can appreciate.
But whether the formality of history judges us kindly, or none at all, for us the value of what we do must not reside there.
It must lie within us rather than outside ourselves. And we will only reach the summit of our own genius (and I do believe that we all have the spark of genius within us) if, after learning each and every lesson, we break through the pain and barrage of circumstantial opinion and forge ahead in our individual paths.
The truth is that we were given our talents to be exploited to the fullest of our abilities. And we will be judged by ourselves, others, history, God or simply time, by what we have done with those gifts.
Thus, it is not in playing a blame game that the answer will be found. At the end, the fact remains that as harsh as it may sound, we cannot blame anything or anyone other than ourselves for not doing everything in our power to “invest and multiply” those talents. And in that multiplication we may find the “spark”, that artistic moment of brilliance that will make a difference in our lives and in the lives of others. And that will be our legacy, our tiny or giant footstep (that does no matter) into the long path of human civilization.
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Published by Ignacio Alperin Bruvera
ABOUT IGNACIO
Ignacio was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, grew up in Australia and lived in several countries around the globe until his return to his country of origin 15 years ago.
At a very young age and with the help of his mother, a talented artist herself, and his father, an engineer internationally renowned for his creativity and innovation, he took his first steps in the world of art. Surrounded by drawing tables, technical pens and architectural influences he began to create his own path.
His early influences were very eclectic and mature for his age. They included great masters like Rembrandt, Monet, Van Gogh and Picasso, as well as modern masters like Kandinsky, Pollock, de Kooning and Rauschenberg. Drawing, painting, and a great deal of reading took an important place in his life.
During his early 20s he develops a love affair with jazz, becoming an avid follower of the local Australian jazz scene and as a result, his painting begins to show signs of this inspiration. Complex rhythms, intertwining melodies, and a great deal of improvisational skills are developed in his art.
That slow and jazzy pace also helped him mature his own approaches and techniques while freeing himself from classical ties, finding stimulus in unusual places and developing a unique and sensitive voice.
Added to that, his artistically applied synesthesia –condition which he shares with Kandinsky-, adds to his work an unusual share of musicality and innovation. The artist admits the complexity of combining his artistic imprint with the possibilities this "gift" generates while always underlining that it is a constant exploration, full of achievements as well as challenges.
The result is a fusion that explores the limits of colors and shapes within a marked abstraction. An expressive path without reservations strongly anchored on his individuality and unique experience.
This exploration has not only been applied to his painting. He has also pursued his vision into other forms of artistic expression, including smaller architectural and design projects, and graphic design assignments applied to advertising and marketing.
VISUAL JAZZ
IGNACIO ALPERÍN BRUVERA
The works presented in his Blog are a fraction of the main series developed by the artist and which has been travelling around different cities around the world since 2010. The artist’s "Visual Jazz Tour" encompasses works aided by his synesthesia and based on a visual interpretation of melodies, mainly from traditional and avant-garde jazz, soul, Motown and the American songbook, expressed in shapes and colors.
Fascinated by this musical genre, Alperín has created his own visual language through the same methods of inventiveness and spontaneity as musicians. We find in his paintings spectacular spiral lines and longitudinal strokes which glide through the canvas, outlined by an energetic use of the primary palette, extracting from these colors unthought-of shades and gradations that have become a signature and a characteristic of his bold and powerful style.
In this way he has built its own movement filled language to communicate and engage in a dialogue with the public; mostly divorced from figurative representation, he constructs a visceral abstraction that stimulates the imagination and turn on the viewers’ inner sensations.
Ñ magazine (South America´s largest selling arts and culture magazine), in its issue of September 11, 2010, under the title "IGNACIO ALPERIN in NEW YORK – an Argentine visual Jazz show" went further than that, drawing a parallel between the love of jazz from the great Argentine writer Julio Cortazar and his incorporation of this musical form into literature, with the work of Alperín and his intention to assimilate this same musical form, this time in the realm of visual art.
Many subsequent articles in La Nación and Clarin newspapers (Argentina´s best- selling newspapers), as well as specialized magazines such as the above mentioned Ñ, ADN and Maleva Mag –just to mention a few - have also constantly highlighted his originality and constant growth.
The artist has conceptualized his art in a term that expresses the musicality of his work together with the movement that he seeks to impose on it.
The viewers are thus encouraged to become emotionally involved, transcending everyday reality in a process without space, age or time, towards a more universal, melodic and harmonious view of everything that surrounds them.
The work of Alperín has movement, rhythm, coolness and a degree of visual improvisation that is meant to hide a very well studied score. The result is constant dynamism and exceptional use of color in a never ending search for beats and counterpoints.
This synthesis of Art and music, or "Visual Jazz" as an American journalist baptized it a few years ago, it is almost a trademark of Alperin´s work with a strong track record and exhibitions in New York, Miami, London, Melbourne, Zurich, Lisbon and in Argentina.
Currently, the artist discloses the development of his work and research, and how it applies to corporate and professionally applied creativity in academia, as professor of Creativity and Innovation at the Universidad Católica Argentina (The Argentine National Catholic University in Buenos Aires), and gives seminars on the subject in the context of workshops and events for individuals, companies and artists both in Spanish and English. View all posts by Ignacio Alperin Bruvera
u, crouchon et compotier”, painted in between 1893 and 1894 was sold for a staggering US$60.5 million. A fitting price for a post impressionist painter considered, by most, as the father of modern painting.