Sculpture 25, by Jen Stark

2010 is upon us! A new decade unfolding before our eyes that will surely bring it's own regrettable trends and revolutionary ideas in the art-world. In the regular-world art is slower, impressionist paintings that were at the time considered to be “not real art” are now revered the world over as true masterpieces. And it seems many people are still coming around to the modern and abstract art of the last mid-century. Art has undergone many metamorphosis in the past century, but one might not know it as the art from a hundred-plus years ago remain the undisputed masterpieces for many people.

Whether or not you thought we'd have flying cars by now, we are living in the 21^st century, onto the second decade—this is the future! We've got cutting edge technology, but in a lot of ways cutting edge aesthetics have not totally caught up. With these thoughts in mind, I'd like to ring in the new year by taking a look at the recent trends in art of the past decade, and where we have really come in the past 100 years.

On our recent trip to Greece, my husband and I saw them everywhere: taped to the dashboards of buses, crammed one above the other in tiny cave chapels, centered in the omnipresent roadside shrines, propped up besides cash registers in bakeries, lining the walls of gift shops, and – of course—in places of adoration in Greek Orthodox churches. Highly symbolized icons, images of Christ and the saints, seemed to be everywhere.

The painted icons generally showed several figures (sometimes a scene, but more often just one or two individuals) sitting, with a solid background of metal or gold leaf, for the viewer to reflect upon. The Virgin Mary and her son Jesus were the most common subjects, shown in several repeated poses: Christos Pantokrator (“Christ Almighty”, grasping the New Testament in his left hand and holding his right hand up in blessing) and Maria Glykophilousa (“Mary of Loving Kindness”, holding her young son and gently touching her cheek to his), just to name two. The poses that go with each name are very specific, and the title always matches the way the figures are standing and what they are holding.

For my work Christmas party last year, we were all invited to bring in a picture of ourselves as children doing something seasonal, for a game of match-the-employee-to-the-childhood-photo. Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of Santa pictures in the mix. What was unexpected, though, was a strange trend that I noticed – of the Santa pictures on the board, very few showed good, sweet children smiling at the camera from Santa’s lap. Instead, most people brought in a picture of a screaming kid trying to wriggle away from a weary St. Nick.

Why, when a bunch of adults went to their parents and requested a festive picture, did they all turn up with photos of themselves hollering and crying? Did none of us ever take normal pictures with Santa? I don’t think that’s the case. No, it seems that somewhere along the line, either my coworkers or -- more likely -- their parents sorted through a stack of old Santa pictures and deemed that the best ones, the ones worth keeping, were the ones where the tiny versions of their adult children look like complete and absolute brats.

Or, more accurately, I think, they picked the pictures where their kids didn’t look unrealistically perfect. They picked the pictures where their kids looked like themselves, skinned knees, runny noses, temper tantrums, and all. And my coworkers themselves, as adults looking back at pictures of themselves pushing a tired old man in the face, picked those pictures over their other options, too. They all preferred a “bad” Santa picture to a “good” one.

When it comes to painting, do you prefer an image that shows an episode in action or one that presents the individual in a still, concentrated pose? Do you prefer an active scene or a portrait? Regardless of which you prefer, both formats convey stories.

Every painting tells a story. Narrative was injected into Western art with the advent of the technique of perspective that emerged during the late middle ages and was perfected with the Renassaiance masters. Prior to that time, most high art was paid for by religious or noble institutions and focused not on drama and story as with presenting the viewer, usually illiterate peasants, with an ordered philosophical view of the world -- dogmatic non-fiction. However, as the mimetic quality of the artist’s technique improved, the realm of visual arts became more experimental, and artists could expand their work’s narrative potential. Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, while officially an altarpiece showing the Armageddon, could very well have been a graphic novel or comic book.