The Influence Of Seymour Chwast
There is a thinking that causes quite a bit of arguement: Is art still art when money is involved? Does money corrupt art? Can bad art be still art if money is not involved?
When a professional, one who is respected by his peers and the buying public, speaks about this subject about art and money, it is revealing. His attitude influences powerfully.
Have a listen-in:
About the bridge or chasm between art and commerce, when quietly propounding his personal philosophy, Chwast recognizes the dichotomy: “As for my own work, I am split into two parts. My advertising art has to show how wonderful everything can be, what a good life you can have if you buy a certain product. On the other hand, generally in editorial work, I am asked to expose the truer and less pretty side of ourselves. Does advertising lie? I don’t know, but in a way it shows our weaknesses as well. In any event, while I consider myself a capitalist tool, along with a well-known business magazine, I share the hope of my colleagues that somehow humanity will be served.” However, on a more mundane level, he goes on to say: “What I like to do is amuse myself with visual tricks, conundrums, parodies and the unpredictable. We often don’t realize that being able to reproduce our work in newspapers and magazines millions of times—is magic! I think the stuff we put on these pages should be magic too.” Despite his many and varied accomplishments in so many fields, there remains one mountain yet unclimbed, one goal unattained.
Some day Seymour Chwast would like to do a full-length animated film. Despite the unhappy fact that no financier has come forth, the Art Directors Club is obviously willing to overlook this unfulfilled ambition. But of the many goals attained, there is no question. As Alan Fern, Director of that National Portrait Gallery once put it, “One has only to look at Chwast’s work to see that he is a person of exceptional accomplishment and range. An artist with a sense of wit, sympathetic to children, successful as an advertising designer, possessed of a social conscience, he is flexible without being eclectic, sentimental without being maudlin, an artist for commerce whose individuality is never for sale.”
And it was Alexander Pope who said it best. “How the wit brightens, how the style refines.”
Have a look at an illustrator who has been influenced by Seymour Chwast's work.
When a professional, one who is respected by his peers and the buying public, speaks about this subject about art and money, it is revealing. His attitude influences powerfully.
Have a listen-in:
About the bridge or chasm between art and commerce, when quietly propounding his personal philosophy, Chwast recognizes the dichotomy: “As for my own work, I am split into two parts. My advertising art has to show how wonderful everything can be, what a good life you can have if you buy a certain product. On the other hand, generally in editorial work, I am asked to expose the truer and less pretty side of ourselves. Does advertising lie? I don’t know, but in a way it shows our weaknesses as well. In any event, while I consider myself a capitalist tool, along with a well-known business magazine, I share the hope of my colleagues that somehow humanity will be served.” However, on a more mundane level, he goes on to say: “What I like to do is amuse myself with visual tricks, conundrums, parodies and the unpredictable. We often don’t realize that being able to reproduce our work in newspapers and magazines millions of times—is magic! I think the stuff we put on these pages should be magic too.” Despite his many and varied accomplishments in so many fields, there remains one mountain yet unclimbed, one goal unattained.
Some day Seymour Chwast would like to do a full-length animated film. Despite the unhappy fact that no financier has come forth, the Art Directors Club is obviously willing to overlook this unfulfilled ambition. But of the many goals attained, there is no question. As Alan Fern, Director of that National Portrait Gallery once put it, “One has only to look at Chwast’s work to see that he is a person of exceptional accomplishment and range. An artist with a sense of wit, sympathetic to children, successful as an advertising designer, possessed of a social conscience, he is flexible without being eclectic, sentimental without being maudlin, an artist for commerce whose individuality is never for sale.”
And it was Alexander Pope who said it best. “How the wit brightens, how the style refines.”
Have a look at an illustrator who has been influenced by Seymour Chwast's work.
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