Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Stamps to Admire or Stomp On


A couple of months ago, I posted a sampling of my stamp collection. I suspect that's what prompted me to order this Abstract Expressionists commemorative sheet from the United States Postal Service.

Although my stamp collecting hobby has been dormant for many years, now I've gone and purchased an item which threatens to be the beginning of a resurgence of my old passion.

I ordered two of these sheets, one of which I'll keep for my collection. I've decided to peel the stamps from the second sheet and adorn special birthday cards with a smattering of abstract art with the intention of dazzling the recipients. Perhaps I'll appear to be a connoisseur of fine art to those select few. (I'm not, but please don't tell!)

If you grow weary of viewing these abstract expressionists stamps and reading the hogwash about the art, scroll to the bottom for my humble and uninformed opinion of abstract art. I mean no harm by expressing myself in this outspoken manner, but these are my present thoughts.

The wording beside each stamp below is not mine. I took these descriptions from the back side of this sheet of stamps.


Hans Hofmann's The Golden Wall (1961) features his trademark "push and pull" technique: geometic shapes that animate the canvas by seeming to shift and overlap.







Skittering black lines, shifting shapes, fragmented body parts, and flashes of color fill the surface of Willem de Kooning's 1948 work Asheville.



Orange and Yellow (1956) features two rectangles painted in the vibrant tones that Mark Rothko favored.







For Convergence (1952), Jackson Pollock laid blue and white clouds and loops of red and yellow atop a black-and-white base.


The Liver Is the Cock's Comb (1944), Arshile Gorky's creation, uses abstract forms to camouflage a deeply personal portrait of his family at home.








Clyfford Still painted ponderous, abstract canvases to convey universal themes about the human condition. 1948-C is one of his creations.









Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 34 features black bars and ovals and vertical white stripes that partly obscure colors that refer to the flag of the Spanish Republic.







Joan Mitchell's La Grande Vallee O (1983) is intended by the artist "to convey the feeling of the dying sunflower."





















Romanesque Facade (1949) brings together Adolph Gottlieb's aspiration to be intuitively understandable to everyone and to convey a universal emotional reality.




Achilles (1952) by Barnett Newman features a swath of red paint that moves down the canvas to end in a ragged edge.







As for me, I'm not impressed with abstract art. Most of these "works of art" look to me like what you'd see on the walls of a kindergarten classroom after the children played with paint.
*
What do you think?

7 comments:

Vanessa Wolfram said...

I absolutely ADORE these!!! I majored in the visual arts in university and can appreciate the emotion that goes into them. Makes me want to break out my brushes!!!! I don't care too much for the Motherwell and Newman ones, but the rest are fantastic! I'd hang them in my house :)

Anonymous said...

Me too, I love these! What a great post Shaddy. I love the colors and shapes in abstracts like these. Thanks for letting us know these are available. I'm so getting a couple or 5 sheets of them :)

Cheryl Peters said...

CHEERIFIC: Well, I'll be darned. I'm glad you enjoyed the abstract art. Since I don't understand and truly appreciate it, I'm pleased that you do.

SARIE: I'm outnumbered already! Both you and Cheerific love this type of art. I don't necessarily dislike it but I don't get as much out of it as you do.

I'm tickled that you enjoyed this post. I didn't know how it would be received.

If these sheets aren't available at your post office, you can order them at the USPS website. That's where I got mine. You'll find them under STAMPS (duh). View all and you'll see them there.

LenoreNeverM♡re said...

Rothko is my favorite!
minimalist yet the colors are always so striking, the paintings look so much better in person when I saw them in London~
xo*

Cheryl Peters said...

LENORE: You saw them in person! Singapore, London...you get around, girlfriend. I love it!

Anonymous said...

thank you dear. I will have to order them online, our P.O. doesn't have any :(

Anonymous said...

There are actually various titles attached to this type of job.

You got to get hold of the best professional therapist in town who can help you to fine
tune and perfect your personality traits and bolster your confidence level to new high.
Depending on your lifestyle, now you also have the option to opt
for online schools.
My website - signs of depression teens