The Relation of Art & Life: Some examples…

Aesthetic Realism & Art: Does Art Answer the Questions of Our Lives?

 

At the opening of the Terrain Gallery, February 26, 1955, Eli Siegel’s historic explanation of beauty was first presented to the public—the Fifteen Questions, Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites?  In these years, hundreds of paintings, prints, sculpture, photographs and drawings by numerous artists have been shown with comment based on these magnificent questions.

Visit the Terrain Gallery website, read A Brief History, see great Art Criticism based on Aesthetic Realism, on Bruegel, Van Gogh, Matisse, Chardin, Pop Art, Guston, Homer, Indiana, Lange, Magritte, Corbusier…and more!

♦ “Can We Be Expansive & Contained Like Van Gogh’s Starry Night?” A talk I gave in the series at the Terrain Gallery “How Art Answers the Questions of Your Life,”

♦ “I Learned about Imagination,” An article about the chapter “Imagination, Reality, Aesthetics” from Eli Siegel’s Self and World as I studied the difference between good and bad imagination—with examples from my own life, Karl Menninger’s The Open Mind, and the art of Lewis Carroll.

♦ An aspect of my self-expression has been as an artist. The study of art has been for most of my life, and I’ve had the pleasure and honor to continue to study and learn in classes for visual artists at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation taught by Chaim Koppelman, Marcia Rackow, and the Critical Inquiry taught by Dorothy Koppelman.

Below is a painting I did in December, 2015. It has been a warm winter, and the leaves of many colors were still on the trees in Tompkins Square Park, on Avenue A and 9th Street, in NYC. I was affected by the fact that clothes for the homeless had been placed on the lower fence, so people in need could take them. The clothes were of many colors too, they were, as the leaves and trees were, orderly and disorderly, curving downward on the fence, while the trees were bursting with color.

Tompkins Square Park with clothes for the homeless by Miriam Mondlin
Tompkins Square Park, with Clothes for the Homeless December 2015 by Miriam Mondlin (to enlarge, click image).

 

And a sampling of my paintings and photographs:

MiriamMondlin-carrisol-tangerines-250ht
“Carrisol Tangerines” (acrylic on paper canvas)

Drums Onstage, covered
Drums Onstage, covered (charcoal drawing)

Drums Onstage, uncovered
Drums Onstage, uncovered (charcoal drawing)

East Harlem Fire 2014 (collage)
East Harlem Fire 2014
(collage)

"Bonfire" (watercolor on paper)
“Bonfire” (watercolor on paper)

"Wildflowers in the Catskills"
“Wildflowers in the Catskills”

Large Radishes (acrylic on canvas paper)
Large Radishes (acrylic on canvas paper)

Old Movie House, Loch Sheldrake, NY (photograph by Miriam Mondlin, 2007)
Old Movie House, Loch Sheldrake, NY (photograph)

"Brooklyn the Gorgeous" (seen from the East River, Manhattan) (ink pencils, watercolor on paper)
“Brooklyn the Gorgeous” (seen from the East River, Manhattan) (inktense pencils, watercolor on paper)

Mme Sevigne Letters to her Daughter, accompanied by potatoes by Miriam Mondlin (acrylic on canvas paper)
Mme Sevigne Letters to her Daughter, accompanied by potatoes (acrylic on canvas paper)

Orange Pepper, cut in half by Miriam Mondlin (watercolor, pens, ink pencils on paper)
Orange Pepper, cut in half (watercolor, pens, ink pencils on paper)

New Hope Steam Train, in the station by Miriam Mondlin (acrylic on canvas)
New Hope Steam Train, in the station (acrylic on canvas)