‘Risdee’ to aficionados.
For an alphabetical index of the New England College series of pieces, click here.
RISD is generally ranked as the #1 art school in the US, and is located at the base of the Brown University campus. The school does not confer a degree, its minor requiring studies in history, philosophy, social sciences, English, art history or liberal arts at an accredited college for a degree to be earned. Brown, as it happens, is happy to oblige and offers a dual Brown/RISD degree in exchange for five years at the two institutions.
Whether it’s photography, film, glass, furniture, graphic design, printmaking – you name it – RISD is the place to go.
We focused our brief visit the other day on some of the art on display after a busy day touring Brown. The campus is a bit all-over-the-place with no unifying quad or sense of an architectural whole, but there were lots of fun discoveries to be made. As I would far prefer my son becomes successful and buys art, rather than make art and be economically destitute, our limited visit was just right. I cannot think of a worse way of making a living than as an artist where success is as much serendipity as skill, with a healthy dollop of talent thrown into the mix. There is simply too much competition for the profession of making art to make economic sense and the barriers to entry are near non-existent, meaning too much competition.
Intent on destroying the beauty of the museum’s entrance, some idiot has affixed a bunch of painted bamboo poles using cable ties to the railings. This is not art. It’s stupidity plus a healthy leavening of pretentiousness.
Cool modern sculpture contrasts with the architecture. No magic here – a metal pole down the drilled centers of the eggs holds all in place.
By a country mile this is the finest piece on display, Manet’s portrait of Berthe Morisot, 1871. The narrative has it that the casualness of the pose shocked viewers. I think that’s nonsense. Rather, what you see is nascent photographic imagery – the missing foot for example – in a candid snapshot of a painting. Degas did this sort of thing best. The lovely pastel on the right is by the sitter, for Berthe Morisot was an accomplished painter in her own right.
With so much to show and so little space, RISD wisely throws as many paintings on the wall of this overflow gallery as it can. It may be tough viewing, but it beats leaving them in the basement.
The setting of RISD is in the city of Providence, Rhode Island.
A mess of buildings, confusingly arranged.
More of the same.
The concept of ‘teaching art’ is anathema to me. You can teach technique in certain subjects but you cannot teach talent to the talentless, so I always rather wonder about art schools. Given that techniques can be easily learned from a book or an app (photography being an excellent example) all that remains to be found is talent and that’s a binary equation. You either have it or you do not. It cannot be taught. Think about that next time you see 20 talentless fools, untroubled by original thought, all obediently pointing their cameras at the subject as dictated by their equally talentless ‘instructor’. Or, worse, imitating that supreme bore, Ansel Adams.
RISD alumni include James Franco, David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Sam Posey (!) and many others. In no case was their talent found at school.