Jazz
Jazz has been an influence in many artist's
work, from painting to other forms
of music. Jazz is an American music form
that was developed from
African-American work songs. The white man began
to imitate them in the 1920's
and the music form caught on and became very
popular. Two artists that were
influenced by jazz were Jean-Michel Basquiat
and Stuart Davis. The influence is
quite evident in many of their works, such
as Horn Players, by Basquiat, and
Swing Landscape, by Davis. Stuart Davis
was born in Philadelphia in 1894. He
grew up in an artistic environment, his
father was art director of a
Philadelphia newspaper, who had employed
Luks, Glackens, and other members of
the Eight. He studied with Robert Henri
from 1910 to 1913, made covers and
drawings for the social realist periodical
The Masses, which was associated with
the Ash-can School, and exhibited
watercolors in the Armory Show, which made an
overwhelming impact on him.
After a visit to Paris in 1928 he introduced a new
note into U.S. cubism,
basing himself on its synthetic rather than its
analytical phase. Using
natural forms, particularly forms suggesting the
characteristic environment
of American life, he rearranged them into flat
poster-like patterns with
precise outlines and sharply contrasting colors. He
later went on to pure
abstract patterns, into which he often introduced
lettering, suggestions of
advertisements, and posters. The zest and dynamism of
such works as Swing
Landscape reflect his interest in jazz, which Davis
considered to be the
counterpart to abstract art. Davis is often considered to
be the outstanding
American artist to work in a cubism idiom. He made witty and
original use of
it and created a distinctive American style, for however
abstract his works
became he always claimed that every image he used had its
source in observed
reality. Davis once said " I paint what I see in
America, in other words
I paint the American scene." Stuart Davis' works of
the late 1930's celebrate
the urban and technological environment and are quite
complex and frequently
recall Legers's brightly coloured geometric forms. Early
works depict saloons
and ragtime musicians. Titles and images of his works in
the 30's reflect
syncopation and unusual rhythm of jazz, particularly swing.
Jean-Michel
Basquiat was born in 1960, four years before Stuart Davis' death. At
an early
age Basquiat showed an interest and love for drawing. His mother often
took
him to The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, and The
Metropolitan
Museum of Art. At the age of seven he and a friend of his
wrote and illustrated
a children's book. Basquiat was inspired by Alfred
Hitchcock films, cars, comic
books, and Alfred E. Newman from Mad Magazine.
By the time he was seven he was
an avid reader of French, Spanish, and
English texts. In his teenage years
Basquiat ran away from home often. He
did not like obedience. By 1978 he was in
with the "in crowd." The filmmakers
and artists of New York. He
enjoyed doing graffiti work using the name SAMO (
same old *censored* ).
Basquiat's career was divided into three broad
phases. From 1980 to 1982 he used
painterly gestures, mostly skeletal figures
that signal his obsession with
mortality. He also used figures that represent
street existence, such as
policeman, buildings, and graffiti From 1982 to
1985 he was using more phrases
and words in his paintings. They reveal a
strong interest in his black and
hispanic identity and his identification
with historical and contemporary black
figures and events. The last phase was
from 1986 until his death in 1988. His
work displays a new type of figurative
depiction, using different symbols,
sources, and content. He was seeking a
new territory in his work. When
Basquiat's Horn Players and Davis' Swing
Landscape are displayed side by side it
is quite obvious that they were done
by two different artist. In Swing Landscape
it is not obvious that this piece
was inspired by jazz, as where in Horn Players
the influence of jazz is
evident. These painters have two completely different
styles but are inspired
by the same types of things. They are inspired by
society and music. They
both appreciate the art value of music, especially jazz.
Stuart Davis'
Swing Landscape is quite colorful and vibrant. The colors give a
feeling of
jazz with the use of blues and cool colors. The use of the warm
colors shows
the unpredictability of jazz. There are many forms of geometric
shapes used
in this painting. The shapes used in this painting again show
the
unpredictability of jazz, as well as the vibrancy of that music form.
There are
not a lot of distinguishing symbols of jazz in the painting, except
for maybe a
pair of sunglasses and a metronome in the bottom left corner.
This painting
represents the feeling of jazz, even though it is not evident
at first glance.
It definitely is a painting that needs to be studied for
a while. The fact that
the music is incredibly vibrant and unpredictable is
quite noticeable. I can
envision Stuart Davis listening to jazz and swing
while painting this. You can
see the notes within the painting. If you listen
real carefully you can hear the
music. I find Jean-Michel Basquiat's Horn
Players to be more of a representation
of the people behind the music.
Basquiat's painting has some color in it, but is
not vibrant. The colors
almost show the dark and troubled side of jazz. He uses
a lot of words and
symbols. It shows his hero Charlie Parker, which is evident
by the use of the
word "Ornithology", a composition by the great
Charlie Parker and his
colleague in modern jazz, Dizzy Gillespie. Both of their
names show up in the
painting. The word ear reminds us that jazz is from
aural/oral roots, more
improvised than written down. The word larynx is in honor
of the ability to
play full-throated. The painting also praises memorable
scatting with the
words ooh shoo de obee. An art historian once suggested that
the symbol soap
alludes to being "clean" in black argot, being, in
other words, aesthetically
impeccable. Basquiat was very involved in his own
celebration of the black
man and this is one of those paintings. There are
similarities between Swing
Landscape and Horn Players even though they are very
different pieces. With
two different styles the artists are able to show the
viewer the values of
jazz. They both appreciate the variance of the music form
jazz. A love for
jazz, by the artist, can be seen in both
paintings.
Bibliography
Marshall, Richard. Jean-Michel Basquiat.
New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992.
Wasserman, Emily. The American Scene -
Early Twentieth Century. New York:
Jupiter Art Library, 1984.