[New-Poetry] Poetic Justice

[Bob Grumman]

Judy Prince wrote:
> Indeed it would be a cool thing about JP's breakthroughs, if he'd done 
> them before his teacher Thomas Hart Benton and before the Way Muscular 
> murals of Orozco and Siqueiros [S who showed JP in that experimental 
> workshop in 1936 the pour'y 'paints', liquid ceramic, as well as the 
> throw, spatter, and drip techniques] and if all of his buddies hadn't 
> been doing AbEx.
I would say his buddies were doing non-representational painting, not 
abex.  If they were doing abex, they had gotten to where Pollock went.  
And, sure, other painters splattered and dripped at times, in otherwise 
conventionally representational pictures (albeit far from photo-realism) 
but he took it to the final extreme, producing complete pictures with it. 

> A situation of questionable eminence rather like Picasso whose rep's 
> founded upon the art he did in response to seeing African masks.
Not for me.  What he did was marry primitive visual art to traditional 
painting, with the addition of a lot of other stuff from, for example, 
Cezanne.  He was no more indebted to the African masks than Klee (my 
favorite painter although I don't consider him the most important 
painter ever) was to children's painting.
>
> Pollock continually wondered if he were a Real Artist, or just a maker 
> of wallpaper patterns.  I rather love a few of those wallpaper patterns.
>
> And I'm fascinated with the bold black calligraphic paintings of Franz 
> Kline, his reaction to Japanese brush writing-painting, which is a 
> reaction to Chinese brush writing-painting.  Kline's mother said about 
> him and the black paint [I'll have to paraphrase]:  "Just like Franz, 
> always taking the easy way."  One can only imagine what Rothko's 
> mother would've said.
>
> So far, dear Bob, I've found plenty of paintings which're stunning 
> and/or beautiful, and brilliantly skillfully done, but none which, to 
> me, are Breathtaking.
>
> I'd love to find a fine artwork that brings the ecstasy and weeping of 
> Jessye Norman's singing 'Dove Sono' back in the 80s.
>
> Some poetry, though, does Breathtaking----thank goodness!
>
Well, it's apples and oranges to me.  I like each of the major arts 
about equally, but differently--although, yes, music is the most 
important to me.


--Bob