Tues 20.03.2013

Today I continued the reading that I began yesterday. I read sections of and made notes about a book which I got out from the Textiles section at Tremough library called ‘Artist’s Textiles in Britain 1945-1970’. I thought that this book would be useful because it is all about the links between fine art and textile/surface design. Previously I have done research into the influence of art on the fashion and so I already knew about a few things like YSLs Mondrian dress or Elsa Schiaparelli’s links with the surrealist movement, but this book went into much more detail and focussed more on textile design rather than fashion. I also find this a really interesting period of British Art History so this research was fun for me.

For someone such as myself, who is unsure about to which discipline they ultimately belong, it was really interesting to see the clear links and overlaps between the fine art and textiles world and how these only really became apparent and were allowed to flourish during this period. The foreword to the book begins with a quote from Picasso, which says ‘What do you think an artist is? A fool who, if he is a painter has only eyes, if he is a musician, only ears, if he is a poet, only a lyre for all the chords of the heart, or even if he is a boxer, only muscle?’ He is talking about the need to remain open to different influences and branches of life and creativity within artist practice. I thought that this was interesting, and a valuable principle particularly in areas such as textiles or surface design where the design process often begins with more traditional processes of drawing and painting.

I also found another interesting quote which was included from Nikolaus Pevsner’s book ‘Can Painters Design Textiles?’ which said, ‘Art in the past twenty or thirty years had moved away from narrow representational concerns. Problems of pure form and colour, that is pattern, are now the chief content of art. Hence the stylised, sometimes elementary, sometimes barbaric look of a good deal of modern painting and sculpture.’ I found this concept very relevant to my own practice as it is about the prominence of colour and pattern in modern art. This can be seen in some of the artist which I have explored so far, such as Chris Offili or Emmanuel Ekong Effery.

I feel that this research has helped me to see my own practice within the wider world of Art and Design and the timeline of Art History. It was also interesting to undertake some reading which was not just about particular artists but an overall theory and way of thinking. However, I would still like to look into this book further and select some artists to include in my inspiration book.