Word: brush
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...distinctive for two reasons: 1) it was created largely by Zen monks, who did not consider themselves primarily artists, to illustrate a philosophical Zen concept; 2) it had to be done with maximum spontaneity. In Zen, as opposed to the controlled symmetries of scholarly painting, the inky brush spatters and runs on the paper in a kind of ecstatic exuberance-a sort of Oriental forerunner of action painting. The essence of Zen thought is satori -sudden enlightenment. It comes unpredictably; meditation prepares the artist, but guarantees nothing. One ancient monk, Yun-Men, achieved satori when his teacher slammed a door...
...distrust of theory and doctrine was summed up by Liang K'ai, an artist of the early 13th century, who captured in a few exquisitely jagged brush strokes an illiterate patriarch, howling with glee, tearing up a sutra, or sacred text. It is an Oriental parallel to St. Paul's remark that "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life...
...G.I.s, laundered blacks and apple-cheeked mothers in bifocals; its flags, turkeys, sneakers and little clapboard banks. Today Rockwell's America may seem almost as distant as Thomas More's Utopia, but this sumptuous tome pleasurably suggests why his genre pieces, painterly apple-pie to the last brush stroke, defined a whole area of solid comfort and nostalgic selfesteem...
...letter to The Associated Press was a photocopy of a handwritten note lettered with a brush...
...absurd theater-a parody of a classical statue, failed Icarus with a broken arm and a wooden leg, brandishing his one frayed wing like a plucked and grumpy rooster. Other artists of Klee's time, a Bonnard or a Matisse, could and did summon up with a few brush strokes a whole universe of specific experiences-the golden, fuzzy weight of a peach, the glaze of china, the density and pink warmth of an odalisque's leg. Klee was not interested; he abstracted, and made ideograms. Botanical Theater, 1924-34, is aptly named, for the ceremonious dance...