A rare look into personal reflections and thoughts through the pages of artists' journals, sketchbooks and an interview.
The Maxims of Men Disclose Their Hearts
The Journal of Joel-Peter Witkin
French Saying
"The maxims of men
describe their hearts."
This is true of art
because the heart (and soul)
must grow in love and compassion.
The artist's vocation is to purify
his heart & soul in order to develop
a personal vision,
to create
a sacred dimension.
I make photographs because it allows me to proclaim in the Light what I've perceived in the Darkness of my being. My faith and my photographs are the reasons I live!! I know I'm not going to change the world with what I make. But I want to make work that the viewer perceives as the reproduction of my Soul. That is my criteria and I believe is the reason all great art is made!
We live in a lost and dying world. A great deal of art produced now reflects this-an art of total emptiness, meaninglessness. This "Art" is a denial of the wisdom of the past presented in the unformed, immature philosophy of "Post Modern" sound bites.
I want to penetrate rather than reproduce reality. Photograph (and print) as though that was the first photograph or print ever made.
- JOEL-PETER WITKIN -
Sheila Metzner: Fashion
M. Fresson,
Thank you for the fine prints. It is as though you read my mind. They are perfect. I would like to continue to work with you in this way for a while. And I would like to continue to experiment...
The "soft-eye" is transforming. One minute you are "looking," suddenly you are "seeing" everything changes, dimension, sensation of colors, a kind of objective discrimination begins. Thoughts are magnetized to the vision. Like clouds congregate at the horizon. Reality and vision are one. There is no separation. You are to believe in yourself and what you see. Enraptured until the other reality which you do neither inhabit nor own, outright, calls you back.
- SHEILA METZNER -
Imogen Cunningham: Platinum and Palladium
I never photograph ugliness. I am afraid I am a little too aesthetic to be anything but old-fashioned. I agree to that. I let myself be old-fashioned, why shouldn't I? I have a formula for how to make a good photograph; I think that in order to make a good photograph, you have to be enthusiastic. That is, you have to think about it, like a poet would.
I think everything you do is something of a contribution, unless it's no good. Then you better hide it. What I like to see about a photograph, is everything smoothly in focus-or if it's out of focus, for a purpose. And, the quality and gradations of value, rendered, more nearly and accurately in a smaller photograph. I don't mean tiny, but I mean, not too big. I think still photography has more of an aesthetic appeal, that is the single photograph.
For some people history is a great adventure, for others a great bore. But for me it is overpowering. As far as the history of photography is concerned, I have lived more than half of it. But it still gives me pause.
- IMOGEN CUNNINGHAM -
The Journal of Joel-Peter Witkin
The Journal of Joel-Peter Witkin (close-up)
Sheila Metzner: Fashion
Imogen Cunningham: Platinum and Palladium