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IDEOLOGY AND
AESTHETIC IDIOM
An Essay about Skov’s search for an
aesthetic idiom to match the contemporary twentieth century ideology.
An review of Skov’s
paintings and artistic development would seem incomplete if it did not
address his lifelong quest for incorporating meaning into his work; and
more specifically, the question as to what particular focus he had
regarding the concept of meaning. And right at the outset it may be well to
note that Skov, as most artists, did not arrive at an answer that was
satisfactory to himself before having experimented with his medium and
matured while searching for clarity.
As a pictorial
artist, Skov would be the first to emphasize, as he often did to friends
and family, the high priority to be given to purely aesthetic concerns in
art as well as the high priority requirement for application of “prepared”
artistic intuition; and he would also wish to point out his awareness of
the limitations of the painterly medium to accept and convey excessively
complex messages of emotional or intellectual content. Yet, at the same
time, he has made it clear that the creative artist is a mirror of his or
her own time and culture to the extent assimilated by the artist.
The premise here is
that without exception the prevailing cultural paradigm which, of course,
includes all aspects of knowledge and faith, and particularly the
relationship of the artist to himself, his society and finally to his
universe, inevitably and necessarily will be reflected in the artist’s
work. This, Skov has often maintained, is unavoidable, except if the artist
has deliberately opted out of his contemporary culture. And to the extent
an artist has not understood or incorporated the evolution and contemporary
status of development of his culture, he or she will be less of a leader in
the interpretation of the cultural paradigm and, therefore, less relevant
as an exponent of the contemporary epoch.
Another insight to
understanding Skov’s approach to his work, is provided by his premise of an
essential unity, a holistic view as it were, of the relationship between
the individual self and the overall cultural context; that is, his belief
that, although our verbal thoughts and languages are structured to only
express discrete and separable pieces of information, and that intellectual
analysis requires distinctive definitions and labels to be made and
transmitted, even so, any statements that can be made and the very thoughts
themselves as well, these are all merely single reference points and
individual aspects of an integrated structure of beliefs, a single whole, -
much like an elephant's trunk, sides, tusks and tail are distinctively
different, and yet, together, constitute mere singularities of a complete,
organic entity.
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