Remembering Germain Kalmykoff
(19)
The Word Paintings and Drawings of Germain Kalmykoff: A Gallery (continued)
Salon 3 Pictures from His Life
Germain Kalmykoff's (untitled) Autobiographical Sketch
This is to support my case for entry into the fine arts series of courses at the University of British Columbia.
At the outset, I should state that I have been over a period of some 25 years, constant in my pursuit of art knowledge, in one way or another.
Sifting through art slides and art gleaned from publications in this and other languages (mainly French and Russian languages in which I am thoroughly conversant.) My main endeavour though has always been to look at art in the original, in all its variegated forms.
Regardless of cost and inconvenience I have gone far and wide to achieve this self-imposed task. Let me get somewhat into detail.
Without sounding presumptuous, whilst in China at an early age, I began to show enthusiasm for museums and gallery attendance. Later in Australia, there was a laying of foundations, indeed of appreciation of all the fine arts, music and drama included.
Given that Australia has a very short history, with little art accretions and aboriginal art work either inaccessible or spurious in origin, there was a lot of contemporary art to view. This I did with diligence. I, in fact, have kept myself abreast of developments of the Australian art scene.
About that time I began to produce what I now regard as derivative work, inspired by Dufy, cubism, Atlan. Even then, in 1959, a deep and abiding interest is formed for the Italian Quatrocento which has not waned to this day.
In 1961, travel to Europe - a highly perceptive experience, this coming of contact with European aesthetic traditions. Naples, museum artifacts in Rome, Ravenna mosaics, Venice, Basel, Paris. for the next 5 years it will be a frenzied effort to see art of almost all Western Europe - sculpture, architecture, paintings, past and present. Visits to national art collections, private showings, retrospectives. A hard look at European art.
Enthusiasm for Woolpit churches of East Anglia. A special interest in the transitions from Norman to Early English, and later in Spain, Romanesque to Gothic.
A list would be too long to enumerate here; suffice it to say that even minor provincial collections (such as one of Gaudier-Brzeska in Orleans) have not escaped my attention.
In 1962, a 'classical' tour of Spain, Burgos, Madrid, Toledo, Avila, Segovia, Valladolid, Santillana del Mar, Altimira. Not at all superficial but rather a careful and painstaking effort and an eminently enjoyable one. Later on, will make similar numerous short forays into Holland, Portugal, Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland and elsewhere.
1965 - arrival into this country and aesthetic adventures of a different kind - an impact of Canadian nature not to go unnoticed - began drawing landscapes, after study particularly of Brueghel and Durer's treatment of the subject.
A continuum in formal art appreciation is kept up with regular visits to Canadian collections, on the U.S. West Coast and some avid gallery hunting in New York. At times, aesthetic sensibilities would be blunt owing to ill-health. Regardless, gallery attendance would go on unabated. In those dire circumstances, was made a journey through Greece & Yugoslavia in 1966.
1968 - a brief stay in Mexico will include visits to the much vaunted and acclaimed Instituto de Allende. Viewing of Mexican art elsewhere warranted the lengthy bus journeys.
Summer of 1969 - a lengthy return visit to Northern Italy, Cremona, Pisa, Bologna, Milan, Padua with highlights being a personal rediscovery of Masaccio in the Brandusi chapel and Manteona's work in Mantua. Also a quick look at ecclesiastical art in the Marches.
Last 5 years have proven to be extremely productive in another way. - Three hundred pieces of art, some large some small (see attached descriptive notes).
The above is by no means an exhaustive account of art experiences - it is a perfunctory list of some travels undertaken for the purpose of looking at art hopefully to continue doing same in future -
Furthermore, as supporting evidence will show, I have uninterruptedly taught fine arts here and elsewhere for 18 years
To conclude . my task is simple, it is to seek recognition of efforts done in art -
. . . born to see, appointed
to observe . . . (Goethe)
This portfolio of drawings is part of an output of art work done in the space of four years, 1969 to 1973, during which the greater part of time (apart from teaching school) was spent on either starting new drawings or finishing old ones, only to be stashed away, to see the light of day, someday.
To an untutored eye, these drawings, hopefully have a superficial attraction, though an erudite critic will discover this artist's "exploration of possibilities in pencil drawing to its fullest dimensions" or observe correctly that "cadences of strokes derive from Renaissance art." To some few it's plain terribilita. A minimalist is likely to find that it's got to much of everything! A jaundiced art aficianado might even dismiss it all as altogether out of fashion. It's been done before, ten years ago in Paris - better!
The truth of the matter is that if you went out looking for high points of Western Art in cathedrals, venerable museums, pokey out-of-the-way art shops, prestigious art collections - here and abroad - some art of significance has got to come out somewhere!
Also, these motifs have evolved from some considerable drawing of natural forms, trees, flowers, copying old masters, looking at famous art, and constantly reading about it.
That way, gradually one acquires a pictorial language of one's own.
Anything is grist for this mill - macrographs, Michelangelo, Arshile Gorky, Turkish miniatures, early Georgian cloisonne work, Durer.
It must be all rhythmically fast, yet in turn delicately slow. Simple yet complex in the very same instant. Spaced out detail, even 'visions to be conjured up from thin air'. Globular shapes interacting, Doppelganger effect; arabesques. Above all - line to control and energize the over-all composition.
Earlier work, inexplicably, is somewhat sombre, pressure-filled. In later specimens color predominates. Later on still, micro-biological forms dart across the picture surface. Could it be that cancerous growth formations are elevated to the dignity of fine art?
Born in 1934, Shanghai, China. Travelled - Phillippines, Australia, in most of West European countries, Mexico, U.S.A. A few years ago, whilst in Australia, went seeking out old masters. In Melbourne, found a little sketch of Rembrandt's. In Sydney, an indifferent Tiepolo and the "Ince Hall Madonna" by Van Eyck.
In 1961, on first visit to Europe, overwhelmed by Italian Quatrocento, Turner, Gothic art, Botticelli. Met Serge Poliakoff, John Piper, Cicero. All the while, teaching the arts sometimes in the most dreadful schools imaginable. Hobnobbed with counts, duchesses, barons, personnel from diplomatic corps. Got to hear in action, close-up, celebrated men - Stravinsky, Bertrand Russell, Krips.
Now relegated to teaching school in this little place. In splendid artistic isolation, one has opportunity to manufacture the work you have come to see.
Germain Kalmykoff
Red Deer, Alberta