Celebration of Fine Art

Chinese Menu for Art Lovers

By Donald Holden

Are you tongue-tied at cocktail parties, sipping your white wine and trying to smile knowingly while other people seem to say all the right things about the latest art exhibits? Do you think they know something you don’t know? They do. They know a few dozen magic words.

You can learn to use such words too, simply by studying this handy chart of 60 words chosen at random from the writings of leading 20^th -century art critics and art historians.

As you can see, the chart is arranged in columns like the familiar Chinese menu. All you have to do is select one word from any position in Column A, a second word from anywhere in Column B, and a final word - any word you like- from Column C.

Practice by picking words at random and you’ll be impressed with the simplicity and flexibility of the system. Begin with some simple combination like “innovative graphic statement.” Then try something a bit bolder, such as “mannered geometric energy.” Then, when you feel really comfortable with the method, you can assemble a weighty combination like “archetypal luminist isocephalism.”

Of course, it takes some practice to work these phrases into conversational sentences. All you need to remember are a few common verbs, and the sentences will take care of themselves. Some verbs that fit all occasions are “shows,” “reveals,” “suggests,” displays” and “demonstrates.” Try a sentence link “His recent work suggests a kind of lyrical emblematic automatism.” Or “This canvas demonstrates her fascination with improvised planar semiotics.” As you gain confidence, you can introduce phrases like “tends toward” or “moves away from.” Thus, “Her new work tends toward a minimal painterly simultaneity.” Or “He finally seems to be moving away from patterned perceptual chiaroscuro.”

Eventually, you’ll feel free to exercise your personal creativity. You can invent new combinations by converting one part of speech into another. Nouns can become adjectives. Adjectives can become verbs. A phrase like “nuanced volumetric schema” easily becomes “schematized volumetric nuances.”

And with the addition of a few simple prefixes and suffixes - such as “neo”, “proto”, “quasi”, “ism”, and “istic” - you can add a scholarly, art historical tone to your conversation. In fact, you can invent your own art movements. “I think one might call this latest trend an “emerging neogestural illusionism.”

For an artist, these prefixes and suffixes are a boon at exhibition openings and art world parties where he’s expected to talk about his own work. “During that phase, I was involved with quasiformalistic proto-classical constructivism; but then my work entered a period of highly personal monochromatic neo-environmentalism.” The ultimate triumph of the system is that the artist can speak about himself as if he’s already in the art history books - as if he’s dead.

Take one from Column A, one from Column B, one from Column C.

About Donald Holden:

Born in Los Angeles, Holden’s formal art training came at New York’s Art Students League, but he remembers learning immensely from New York’s museums and art galleries. Holden began painting watercolors in the early 1980s, and his landscapes are simple, rich and thoughtful. Holden has made frequent contributions to art magazines and journals, and is the author of more than 20 books on painting and drawing. His work can be found in an impressive array of public and private collections in the United States and abroad. As an author he is better known by his pen name “Wendon Blake”, author of many how to books for artists.