Arnulf Rainer, the Great Artist

The “Artist” to end all “Artists”.

Anything I will state in the following lines is, of course, my very own, personal opinion. Only concepts which may undergo scientific scrutiny will I call “facts”...everything else, pretty well, is “my opinion”.

Having said that, let me talk to you about “Arnulf Rainer”. Rainer, borne in 1929 is a world renowned Austrian painter.

Now let it be said that Austria has produced more than its share of wonderfully talented artists in all the arts, specifically in the art of painting. I won't list any of them. If you want to know about them, go to your local library or google “Austrian Painters”.

Below here you will see three of his works, which I photographed from a book of paintings, called :”The Power of the Picture” (Die Macht des Bildes.)

Rainer will take one of his earlier paintings, or a photograph and commence to “overpaint” this work. In other words he will cover the earlier painting or photograph with paint. This, he claims, is a very slow process, since he has to observe the original work until a section “offends him”. Then he will paint over this segment. Whereupon, one presumes, he waits until another section of this to be “over painted” work offends him, which he then quickly “overpaints”....In this way, finally, grows a mono-coloured canvass, with often a little corner not “overpainted” so as to see the original work.

The “artist”, in other words, takes a brush in hand, dips it into a can of paint and covers a photograph.

Sometimes he does not bother to cover the whole area with paint, but simply defaces it with a few quick strokes, somewhat in the way “Zoro” slashed his Z into a tree or onto the chest of one of his hapless opponents.

The resulting work is then placed into a frame and exhibited in the most renowned galleries, where people come, pretending to be in total awe, paying sky high prices for “an original Rainer”.

The owners of the chosen galleries evidently pay good money to “art critics” who write in the most glowing terms about these creations. Let me translate for you one of these unreal tidbits of utter nonsense:

“In a way, which in our time stands alone, his work is the expression of a spiritual world, for which language proves to be inadequate. Even the methods, the observation of form, the analysis of style being made available, make possible at best an approximation of the approximate.”

What was this again? This sentence is constructed about as artfully as one of Rainer's paintings, and says about as much.

Then Rainer painted among many many other “works of art” a painting he called : “Cross”

It, as you can also see below consists of a black square with black paint dripping off it onto another smaller square. Read what the “artist” himself says about this work:

“Because of dissatisfaction I constantly corrected the pictures until they started to become darker and darker. So started, without large concepts the 'over paintings'”

Another art critic allowed himself the following rhapsodic comment:

“The drama of the world reveals itself slowly, inexorably, into the silence of a secret, which possesses its superior power in the hiddenness.

I could go on and on quoting nonsense which has been said or written about this body of work.

Then Rainer came up with something so audacious as to almost defy description:

He spread some paint onto a canvass or a piece of paper, dipped his fingers into the paint and dragged them up and down and every-which-way. He called these abominations “Fingerschmiererein”...

translated into English: “Fingersmearings.” No high and mighty artistic titles to deceive the viewing public. No, he called them what they are: “The artless smearing of fingers through paint.”.

It seems to me that he said to his admiring fans: “You are so utterly stupid, that you will pay me large sums of money, even though I tell you that these are simply “fingersmearings”, having nothing whatever to do with the creative process.”

And of course, good old Arnulf was right. He is one of the highest priced “Smearers of Paint” in all of Europe.

Bertstravels

Wonders about the Emperor's New Clothes

Each of the above "paintings" has a title, which, because of its meaninglessness escapes me for the moment.