The Fog of Art Theory
To put Italian pioggio, "rain," in an art context (as I have, previously), should not seriously be to make it a fifth Canonical Style of Painting, as I have asserted, but a condition of one of the Four Canonical Styles of Painting. The Four Canonical Styles of Painting are essential predicates of painting. According to theory, each-and-every painting must fall into one of the Four Styles. It is not imperative that a given painting has the quality of rain. Pioggio is an incidental quality of a painting (not an essence).
According to the Medieval logic behind The Four Canonical Styles of Painting, every painting has the essence of one of the Four. The quality of rain is optional. How many paintings of rain come to mind, seasoned observer of art? Rain is always incidental to a painting, as weather is incidental to a Romantic landscape. Rarely is the representation of rain, itself, the subject of a painting. And, suppose an abstract painting was to be titled “Rain,” alluding to the painter's handling of the paint, the artist's technique. What would that look like?
Pioggio, in painting, refers to an idea in the mind's eye. The allusion is axiomatic. A painting with rain is not definitive of rain in painting, as such. The painter's rain-like technique is intended to blur definitions, analogous to the blurring effect of edges by canonical Sfumato, literally, "smoky." Smokiness makes a painting sfumato, with-or-without the actual presence of smoke. It is a matter of the painter's touch. To the viewer it is a matter of opinion. Where there's smoke there's fire.
A better definition of pioggio is to compare and contrast it with Tenebrism, another recognized condition of painting. Tenebrism is, of course, a technique of painting which pushes the effects of Chiaroscuro (one of The Four Canonical Styles of Painting) to the limits of what art is capable. Tenebrism may push the dark quality of Chiaroscuro painting to the limits. Too much shadow and it crosses-over to the Dark Side.
The Four Canonical Styles of Painting are as different as The Four Seasons or, perhaps, the Four Humors, denoted sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic. The discussion of art on its merit became quite lively during the Renaissance, and after, so much so that when it turned on a fine point, the debate might well be one of temperament. The quality of rain can be claimed as predicate adjective by all four styles. No further argument is necessary.
Keeping to the weather allusion, the visual effect of weather of the Cangiante style of painting may be likened to the sparkling clarity experienced after the storm has passed. Cangiante is distinctive for exhibiting sharp edges, an emphasis on smart design. Its distinctive humor is comic, nothing like the dramatic-tragic effect of Chiaroscuro, all the more so if the Cangiante is also tenebrist in execution. Cangiante is a decorative aesthetic, lyrical, light. Picasso established it monumentally in his post-Cubist hard edge phase of paintings like stage scenes, props in a theater of painting.
Picasso was not a painterly painter. Leonardo da Vinci was a painterly painter. They have nothing in common and, as a quality of painting, "painterly" painting was established by Leonardo da Vinci. He invented it. Picasso would agree. Picasso did not paint like Leonardo. Cangiante was Picasso's signature effect. Picasso never said so, but his refusal to paint in a painterly way can be attributed to his opposition to The Academy. Leonardo da Vinci will always be the dean of the Art Academy.
Italian Cangiante also means iridescent, changing, both attributes being very apparent in any example of the canonical style. Additionally, cangiante can mean “shot,” which we may take to mean the something like “Pop,” particularly in a discussion of art, and of Modern art specifically. As a vernacular term “shot” plays by loose rules of meaning. In the spirit of its meaning it can be regarded as in a charade. You say “shot.” I say “target,” and mean it as an attribute of cangiante, as alluding to the target bull's eye character of Cangiante form. As with a target, with its concentric circles, Cangiante painting juxtaposes distinct areas, often (but not always) of strong, contrasting colors. The effect is said to “pop.”
Eye-catching, cangiante works well in mass-print advertising. It is striking, attention-getting, sells well. As an attribute of the Cangiante style of art, it may be as flat as a printed proof, or brushwork may be evident (as Picasso demonstrated), but not as an end-in-itself. Painting is a material medium (as printing is not). The quality of impasto comes into play when looking at a painting. This effect must be seen at first hand, by visit to a museum. Paint on a painting is a substance.
Another artist who carried painterly Cangiante to an extreme was Arshile Gorky. Situated between Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, Gorky builds upon Kandinsky's lyrical abstraction, the effect musical in its flowing, freehand linear design. Gorky contributes to Kandinsky's precedent a new technique, that of “scumbling.” Slips, drips, spills and splashes are all fair game, breaking the strict linear design of the target style, mentioned before. The casual handling of the materials of painting humanize the nonexistent subject matter of Gorky's painting.
Each of Gorky's paintings can be seen as a scene in the tragedy of his eventual suicide. He was, in the end, as careless with his life as was forewarned in his detached approach to painting. This is a new dimension of the work of art. It is an emotional factor, psychological, not playful, as was Picasso, and goes beyond originality. It is not a representation of anything. It is painting as fate, as fait accompli, a guilty deed -no accident. It is said “the criminal always leaves a clue,” Il criminale lascia sempre un indizio. Thus does the tragic artist.
One-of-a-kind works of art can be viewed at: https://www.saatchiart.com/account/artworks/1840403