This is a statement from my notes sometime around 1984.  Art is a language.  Speaking of the visual arts, painting and sculpture, 2d and 3d, the artist composes and 'conducts', or 'orchestrates', the various aspects of the medium being used to create this visual music, which when listened to with receptivity carries one within...deepens one's bliss.  They are contemplative doorways.  They represent the psyche of the artist and the artist's command of the 'language'.  It is important to know the science of color.   It is important to appreciate the nuance created by the brush.  It always helps to have some feeling for the mystical underpinnings of the world and your experience. 

     A painting is seemingly contained with in a certain measure of space.  So many inches or feet by so many inches or feet, but the archetypal nature of the artform when appreciated makes the aesthetic space virtually endless.  There are endless tonalities of color.  Each one exists eternally.  It isn't necessarily at all personal,  But combine it with an individual and a brush , all in relationship with each other and the 'world', or motif, art is created.  Something quite worthy of your attention.

      In painting and sculpture, the work I am moved by, is a balance and harmony of those forces that go into its creation.  This can not be done simply from the intellect.  The intellect is a good servant but lousy master...So in painting I would say a painting would be a balance of brush, color, artist's personality (intelligence and feeling), and motif (relationship to world).

    A bit too consider...

     So, I am going to end this here today.  I am open to any questions or discussion.   If you have some thought or criticism, or question, feel free to respond!   

I have decided (for now) to use this blog space to put forth the path of spontaneity in painting and drawing.  my Master in the art, Antonio Salemme was insistent on the place spontaneity held in both painting and sculpture.  It was through years of practice and study with him that I understood the importance spontaneity in the art.  I met him as a young man.  I was in my late 20's and he was in his late 80's.  I had come out of a yogic tradition which emphasized the value of the spontaneous in yoga meditation and practice, so when he talked of how through a lifetime of art practice he had come to value the spontaneous, I listened!  He also sat zazen for 2 hours a day for many years.  Here is a quote gleaned from one of our many conversations on the nature of art.  It ids a quote on the nature of Style

  Style 

a quote by Antonio Salemme 1892-1995



 Style is most important, whether it be a book, a piece of
music, a painting, or a piece of sculpture.  But style is
recognized only in retrospect.  If one has style in mind while
one is painting, one becomes stylistic.  One produces a style
after the Gothic, or Renaissance, or African.  The style becomes
superficial and becomes a manner, and we call that stylistic. 
My style comes out of my whole life.  The style is the result of
the state of mind of the artist, the subject matter one is
handling, the state of one's health, and the clarity of one's
mind: all that goes into the work.  After it's done, the style
can be recognized.  Whatever comes out is a spontaneous and
mysterious thing.  Style cannot be defined intellectually.  It
can be seen only in retrospect.

For example, the Gothic style came out of the condition of
France and Germany in the 13th and 14th century.  The 12th
century was Romanesque: after the Romanesque came the Gothic. 
The Romanesque was a result of the Roman Empire, the Greek art
and all of that.  Then the Gothic came because the people began
to express themselves more directly.  It came out of  The
climate, the stones they had to work with, and their religious
approach... their interpretation of Christianity.  That whole
thing produced what we call the Gothic style, and the word
'gothic' means 'barbarian', uncivilized'.  It was original
expression, getting away from the Greek and the Roman.  But it
all came about in retrospect.  The people who built the Gothic
cathedrals built them as well as they could under the condition
and the state of mind they were in, and out came what we call
the Gothic style.

 So when someone does a painting, the same process takes place. 
Everything one is comes out in that painting.  If one's able to
be spontaneous, then there is spontaneity in the style and there
is vigor in the brush strokes.  If one is not able to be
spontaneous, because one is still immature and one is uncertain,
and one's technique is not complete, then style doesn't come
through, because one is still struggling with technique.  If one
has mastered the technique and lived, and is still vigorous, and
paints with pleasure, then out comes what we call style.   
Style is never an intellectual and willful effort.  It is like
grace in the spiritual life.  We try, we pray, we sit, we
meditate.  By the grace of God in a mysterious way we become
enlightened.  You don't become enlightened by mere effort.  You
don't achieve enlightenment.  Enlightenment comes after great
discipline and effort, but we don't achieve.  It is the same
with style in Art. 

a brief bio - Antonio Salemme was born in Gaeta, Italy, November
2,1892.  After the death of his mother, he moved to Newton,
Mass. with his father in1904.  He began the study of Art at the
Eric Pape Art School, Boston, painting with George L. Noyes and
other painters.  He began studying sculpture in Boston.  In
1910, he went on a study tour of Spain and France with Prof. R.
R. Goodell of Simmonds College, Boston.  In 1912 he was sent by
his patron, William A Read of New York, to study sculpture in
Rome, where he worked under Angelo Zanelli  and studied the
Masters in the museums.  He served in the Italian Army from 1915
to 1919, spending 31 months at the front.  During this time he
did sculpture portraits of two of his generals, and a bronze
relief honoring a lieutenant who was killed on a dangerous
mission. After the war, he worked a short while in Rome and then
returned to the United States. On his return from Rome he
continued to work in sculpture.  He exhibited in the following
national exhibitions: 

 1920's National Academy of Design, National Sculpture Society
1929, 1930 Art Institute of Chicago 1928  Palace of Legion of
Honor, San Francisco 1930's  Whitney Museum, New York City 1932,
1933, 1934, 1935 Salon d'Automne, Salon des Tuileries, and
Gallerie Zac in Paris, France 1930- 1950 Pennsylvania Academy of
the Fine Arts, Philadelphia 1950  Metropolitan Museum of New York



 One Man Shows  1931  Sculpture, Ferargil Gallery, New York 
1935  Sculpture and drawings.  Ehrich-Newhouse Gallery, New York
 1937  Sculpture and drawings.  Findlay Gallery, New York  1939 
Sculpture and drawings.  Wakefield Bookshop Gallery, New York 
1950  Sculpture, paintings, and drawings, Wellons Gallery, New
York  1961  Paintings, Sagittarius Gallery, New York  1964 
Sculpture and drawings.  Robert Schoelkopf Gallery, New York 
1972  Paintings, sculpture and drawings.  Historical Cultural
Center, Gaeta, Italy  1972  Paintings, sculpture, and drawings. 
Fahlnaes Gallery, International Trade Fair, Gothenburg, Sweden
1979  Paintings and sculpture.  Edward-Dean Museum of Decorative
Arts, Cherry Valley, California 1980  Paintings and Sculpture. 
The Yellow Box Gallery



 ...numerous exhibitions of 2 or more artists and represented in
many permanent collections including the Metropolitan Museum of
Art; The Newark Museum, Newark, N.J.; Bronze portrait of Ethel
Waters at Yale University; Bronze portrait of Pres. Dwight  D
Eisenhower at Columbia University, National Headquarters of the
Republican Party, Washington D.C., USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, CVN
89; Bronze portrait of Vilhjalmur Steffansson, Manitoba Centnial
Center, Winnipeg, Canada; Bronze portrait of Pres. John F.
Kennedy, Kennedy Library, Boston;Bronze portrait of Paul
Robeson, Fine Arts Collection, Rutgers University; and many
private collections.   

a favorite quote   -   'Always be a beginner...'- Suzuki Roshi