The Affective Values Of Artists
The mastery of the brush serves as a visual argument to bring depth and subtlety to the depiction of the most essential human emotions and experiences.
This fragment from Alexandru Vlahuţă's book is emotional, because it has something magical, a special view, a place of a story where you get lost and find yourself at the same time, a well-individualized space maintained with that sensitivity of a painter who outlines the experiences with expressiveness, with emotion, with delicacy and subtlety.
Nicolae Grigorescu was, in his own way, very cold. Winter was whiter than the grave to him. He rents a workshop in Paris. He had collected, from so many travels, a lot of art things: old furniture from Normandy, tapestries, oriental fabrics, carpets, weapons, dishes, and, with his gift of enlivening things by the way he knew how to group them, harmonize them between themselves, he created an artistic interior, of peace and dream, where everything spoke softly, with a voice from another time.
The poet of peace, kindness and gentleness, the poet of light and the blue sky is called to sing the darkness and the storm of death, to find on his palette the colors for the most terrible sight that the still untamed wilderness of the human race can present. And there was no painter in the world who could have found them better than him. It seems that all his life he had done nothing but this. Along with the soldiers, facing death, he watched almost all the atrocities of the war, he understood who the real heroes were, and he devoted all the love and all the admiration of his soul to them; them, those dry and hearty peasants, who threw themselves frantically into the arms of death, they, above all, were immortalized in his powerful work - the most moving epic of the bravery of our nation. Yes. Those were his brothers.
And how they were alike him ! Good brothers, like him, putting their whole soul into what they were doing, working hard, fighting hard, sacrificing themselves, without any thought of reward, feeling at all times, over their destiny, a coming commandment further on. And he commands more fiercely than the one that the circumstances call for. Faced with the terrible tragedy of the war, a new painter was waking up in Grigorescu.
Does your work reflect the states generated by situations that highlight your concrete thinking, imprinting it with a meaning of its own?
Affective values, through a psychological theme, therefore characterized by a free aesthetic consciousness, represent a category of values that show the emotional or affective state of a person in accordance with certain things, ideas, behaviors or circumstances. You must take these into account in order to be able to devote yourself fully, without obstacles, to the vocation that you enliven with talent and imagination, with artistic mastery, giving it life.
These values, rare and honest, may vary by artist, depending on the work allocated to the act of creation, reflecting the artist's preferences and subjective assessments of composition and balance. Positive or negative, unusual or unexpectedly broad, the affective values I will talk about next can influence the attitudes and behaviors of artists, especially if I take into account their preferences and subjective evaluations for the depth of perspectives they offer.
For example, if a painter attributes a positive affective value to his connection to art, the kinship between the brush and color, he will have a favorable attitude towards the environment and towards the theme addressed, seeking to spend more time in the middle of nature, than with friends. On the other hand, if he attributes a negative affective value to kitsch, to the falsity with which art is treated, then he will have a negative attitude towards lies, such as the images "on the packaging", and will thus avoid being surrounded by "advertisements".
Indeed, the affective values with which the artist is endowed can be influenced by the life experiences, the social environment, the education and the culture in which he grew up and with which he has interwoven his spiritual needs, they can also be the subject of change and evolution during his life (with whom he agrees to make a pact of great spiritual and divine closeness at the same time). In other words, affective values represent the subjective and emotional evaluations that the artist attributes to some aspects of his life, having a significant influence on the behavior and on the choices he makes to become more creative, more idealistic in terms of the capacity of art to bring positive change to the world.
Can the image of your work captivate viewers if within you lie the traces of an emotional life lived with intensity and vulnerability, before being transposed into art?
A true painter can base his work and creations on a wide variety of affective values inclined towards the use of subtlety in painting, without which the risk of falling into gross caricature would have been enormous. Below are just a few examples of affective values that a painter may hold, in a majority percentage, although the importance and priorities of making works may vary from one artist to another, depending on experiences, interests and individual perspectives.
Aesthetic appreciation: A painter of great finesse especially appreciates the harmony and beauty arising from the act of creation. He seeks to produce unique works that appeal from an aesthetic point of view and that provide visual and emotional pleasure, especially through an overall environment dominated by tranquility and harmony.
Personal expression: The ability of the painter to express his emotions, thoughts and visions through the use of colors, shapes and composition, in a symbolism with hidden meanings, is perhaps the greatest value of his art. I say this because everything the painter has to share is made up of his most immediate experiences, wanderings and passions. In this way, the painter tries to convey his artistic identity and his authenticity in the works made as "novelty".
Emotional communication: A skilled painter succeeds in expressing intense feelings and causing affective reactions in the public, only if the personal image preserves the traces of the emotional life prior to the subject he is addressing. Often, he uses light, colors and other artistic elements to convey joy, sadness, melancholy or amazement, knowing that any interpretation of the painting requires complicity on the part of the viewer.
Exploration and experimentation: A painter can show exploration and experimentation in his art, meaning that he is able to take a surprising and open approach to the artistic process, seeking new directions, techniques, styles or themes. Wanting to expand his limits and discover new ways of expression, the painter must leave his comfort zone and explore new possibilities and ideas in his artistic works, so that he can more easily cross the dividing line between realistic, abstract and impressionist style.
Social and cultural impact: A painter of great finesse appreciates the ability of art to convey powerful messages and cause social change, especially when the message is repeated a great number of times in his works. Through his creative work he seeks to address social, political or cultural issues and inspire reflection and awareness in his viewers, provided he does not soar too far in his "madness" to distant planets and worlds.
The sensitivity and the story of the place: Indeed, the ability to observe and represent moods in works that suggest a certain perspective on the transformation of man into an emotional mirror, into an aesthetic expression of the soul, interweaving the reality of faces in a symphony of colors. Moreover, the painter cultivates the sensitivity and ability to detach, know and understand the beauty of nature, not only the secret life of individuals, because man cannot fully understand himself without the connection with nature, especially in a painted story.
Empathy and fostering dialogue: An excellent artist seeks to bring out his capacity to feel and connect emotionally with others through an explicit affective attitude towards his expressive potential (through the possibilities of expressing his creativity, emotions, thoughts and personal vision in his artistic works).
Through the dialogue between vibrant and subtle colors, expressive lines and flowing forms, light effects and mysterious shadows, the painter seeks to convey deep emotions and provide an authentic emotional experience to his viewers, expressing his understanding and compassion for the human condition through the art of turning the mixture of pictorial elements into a captivating visual harmony.
Leadership represents that exchange of values between you and your creation, through which the interpretation of the artwork becomes a captivating journey into the world of sensations and emotions, as well as a guide toward introspection and self-discovery.
The way the painter expresses himself in the use of the brush technique serves as an argument to give his features a certain depth and subtlety in a theme that includes the most meaningful human emotions and experiences.
Affective Values have a major impact, either positive or negative, on the way the painter perceives himself, compared to the world around him. So, here I mean "self-perception" - the way the painter perceives himself and the world is a very complex aspect of the painter's psychology. It seems to be related to the attitude and motivation with which he insists on highlighting a subject meant to trouble the minds of the viewers.
In general, if you really believe that friendship is important to you, and that it should be an open circle towards all humanity to include all people as brothers, then you will seek to spend time with certain friends. And conversely, if you consider that lying has a negative affective value, so it cannot be incorporated into a picture by means of metaphor, then you will develop a negative attitude towards lying and towards lying people, and you will certainly avoid "lying" to reality in your creations.
Therefore, affective values represent a category of values that show the emotional or affective state of a person in relation to certain subjects, things, ideas, behaviors or circumstances, all of which are part of the arsenal of one's own free decision to communicate one's work to the public in an original way. These fairly pronounced values, realistic, devoted to a particular perspective, can vary depending on the person and reflect the painter's subjective preferences and evaluations for portraiture, illustrating strong emotions and inner connections between him and the subject.
* Notă: Alexandru Vlahuţă - Pictorul Nicolae Grigorescu, Editura Tineretului, 1969
