Philip Guston

I did not realize that we had another week of class, so I thought it would be best to do one more blog entry on an expressionist that I've found intriguing since my assigned trip to the Denver Art Museum.



Philip Guston is notable for his cartoonish sketches of various objects. Born Phillip Goldstein in 1913, he grew up to break away from the Abstract Expressionist movement to help start the Neo-Expressionism. He went to the Los Angeles Manual Arts High School at the same time Jackson Pollock was enrolled.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Guston

http://walkingollie.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/philip_guston_1971_lg.jpg

http://arttattler.com/images/Europe/Austria/Vienna/Albertina/Philip%20Guston/04.gif

http://www.arcadja.com/artmagazine/en/wp-content/gallery/081031-high-conte/02-phillip-guston.jpg

What interests me about Guston is that his work is simple, somewhat confusing and rather comical. Many of his figures seem to be simply imagined, and imagination is an important aspect of any work of art. In terms of imagery, he's no Da Vinci. But he doesn't have to be, because that's not really what art's about. Art is about creation, inspiration, and Guston's ideas serve well to the movement of Expressionism.