Let's be clear: There is no conspiracy operating here. The fact is that Bateman engages with a subject matter that is dear to the hearts of Canadians: the beauty of the natural world. But he describes it in terms that are essentially those of illustration. There is no way in which his handling of paint, or his understanding of what painting is, pushes that medium forward, or even gives it a personal inflection. There is no way in which his paintings reveal interesting thinking about the relationships between man and nature; his environmentally themed paintings, for example, have all the sophistication of Reader's Digest illustrations.

Over-the-top challenge
Ross Bateman
In her criticism of the Robert Bateman show at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection (A Tale Of Two Shows - Review, Oct. 4), Sarah Milroy has a point of view that neatly wraps a common anxiety of her profession. Her worry is that the public is ignorant and, if it is unfortunate enough to stumble on an art show that panders to this ignorance, it becomes bewildered. If true, it's good this was brought to the public's attention; I don't think it had noticed.

A humble illustrator
Ken Nutt
I have got up off the porch long enough to write to thank Sarah Milroy (A Tale Of Two Shows - Review, oct. 4) for her concern about us small-town folk not knowing enough to defend ourselves from exposure to the art of Robert Bateman. It was helpful of her to give us some guidelines: Abstraction equals good; realism equals bad.

I liked this comment from Tronna's Fram Framson:

I'm hardly a Bateman-lover, nor am I anti-modernism, but wow... I think I could taste the venom! Who peed in Ms Milroys cheerios, I wonder? (Robert Bateman, from the sound of it!)

lol
- J@simpleposie (guest) 10-16-2007 7:10 pm

Also, Burrowing Owls rock!
- J@simpleposie (guest) 10-16-2007 7:18 pm

the best thing about Bateman, is his embodiment of the anxiety of mechanical reproduction in late capitalism. Anyone who can exploit our sentimental historical relationship to nature by making large scale colour photo copies for those sums, and then later claim it as part of a holy quest to save the world, out Koons Koons as business art.
- Anthony (guest) 10-16-2007 11:28 pm

True! But dude *can* draw an owl. My owls don't look that good.
Also, watch out for the burrowing owl's cousin:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/84221353@N00/1590819069/

- rob (guest) 10-17-2007 1:36 am

i mean wether he can draw an owl or not is like the third thnig on the list thats interesting though
- anthony (guest) 10-17-2007 3:28 am

Rob draws the bestest owls in the Western World, Man!



(Posted by VB via SM)
- sally mckay 10-17-2007 4:31 am

Note to simpleposie: if you like Burrowing Owls, there is a not too sucky recent kids movie based on a novel by Carl Hiassen called: "Hoot". Be sure to check out the extras reel on the DVD for very cute baby Owl footage.

(posted by VB via SM)


- sally mckay 10-18-2007 3:07 am

I like burrowing owls. And will check it out
- J@simpleposie (guest) 10-18-2007 3:26 am

I like Robert Bateman. And I'm not big on defending the territory of high art, although I do recognise that those of us who do art that isn't about cute or awesome animals nor otherwise highly purchasable to a mass audience need to maintain our own niche in society. But I don't exactly buy the premise that we are under attack, nor that Bateman represents a threat. But I'm in grad school so of course my self-confidence is in tatters. I like hearing what other people think (and I like burrowing owls almost as much as meerkats).
- sally mckay 10-18-2007 4:00 am

though meerkats and owls are cute, i would like to maintain the vital importance of wombats
- anthony (guest) 10-18-2007 7:44 am

wombats were in my class in semiotics the other day. Or at least a jpeg of a road sign with a pictograph of a wombat was projected in my class.
- sally mckay 10-18-2007 6:27 pm

Ha Ha, just needs a tag on the wall that reads: Parse me.
- L.M. 10-18-2007 7:29 pm

parse me baby, parse me. (funny you should mention that, I'm parsing a text right now! it's an assignment.)
- sally mckay 10-18-2007 11:31 pm

I don't want to go down the road towards Cuteoverload or even ICanHas Cheezeburger (though that is surely my desire) so instead I'll offer a link to Carrie Walker, world's best animal artist.
http://www.carriewalker.ca/

Now, of course I feel a bit guilty for sidestepping the serious topic of City vs. Country mouse.
What I appreciate is the Knee-jerk reactionism of country folk (Ken Nutt for example) who always assume city dwellers think them simple hicks and have to get off the porch to write about it.

Okay. I'm done.
Time to go look at the Basset Hounds in my local park.
- swaters (guest) 10-19-2007 12:27 am

Bateman is great because birds are great. Same goes for Danby and hockey. If they were painting, um, something we all don't like - dogfighting say, then we'd hate them. It's another artworld that they are working in.
I kinda agree with Sarah Milroy, just not with her tone. Bateman's paintings are great, they have all the sophistication of Reader's Digest illustrations!
(see what I did there? The way I used the same words but changed the meaning? Parse THAT school girl)

- joester (guest) 10-19-2007 12:44 am

Actually, there's something else going on here with the tone of Milroy's article. You'll recall that the venue for the Bateman show is the McMichael Collection in Kleinburg.

John Bentley Mays reported in his obit for Robert McMichael:

"The first surprise came after McMichael gave his 3,500-square-foot log house in Kleinburg, along with 235 Canadian artworks -- the home and core collection of the McMichael Canadian Collection to the people of Ontario in 1965. In return, Queen's Park gave him a generous tax write-off and permission to go on living in his log cabin. He somehow got it into his head the free ride on the public tab was forever. Instead of graciously moving on after a decent interval, he and his wife Signe stayed on in the house, entertaining Friends among the public's paintings and aboriginal artworks as though he still owned everything.

For more than a decade, nobody raised an objection. Then McMichael's Conservative Party cronies in the Ontario government threw a lavish farewell dinner, with tributes and gratitude galore. Instead of taking the hint, loosening his grip on the gallery and surrendering control to museum professionals -- which was clearly and wisely wanted by the cultural bureaucrats at Queen's Park -- McMichael still didn't budge an inch. Even after the dangerous, dilapidated physical condition of the building became public knowledge in the early 1980s, McMichael continued to dismiss the fire experts and art conservationists as pointy-headed meddlers. He was finally ousted from the building in 1982, when the urgent $10.4-million overhaul of the gallery was commenced. (The pain of transition was eased by gifts of $400,000 cash and a $300,000 house from Queen's Park.)

But being off the premises only seemed to whet McMichael's taste for power. Over the next two decades, he continued to plot and agitate for a comeback to personal control of the collection he had given away. He was especially vociferous about the historical scope of the central group of artworks, which curators wanted to broaden to include contemporary painting, prints and sculpture. Art-gathering had never been strictly confined to the Group of Seven, even during the heyday of McMichael's control. But now the founder decided it was high time to get back to a fiction called "the original vision," and abandon the collecting of contemporary art altogether.

Few believed it would happen. But in 2000 -- to the astonishment of nobody who had watched McMichael operating over the years he got his wish. The provincial Tories under Mike HARRIS slammed through a law that swept professional staff to the sidelines of crucial gallery decision-making, and gave Robert McMichael a permanent say in deciding gallery policy.

The next year, he announced his intention to rid the collection of some 2,000 contemporary artworks he did not like. "or use them as opposed to... simply being wasted, sitting in storage year after year, decade after decade," he told a reporter. "I don't think there's anything demeaning about that at all. They belong in a certain type of atmosphere which is not the atmosphere that exists in Kleinburg."

that is important context L.M.! Thank you. Bateman's great but making categorical decisions on behalf of the folks in Kleinburg about what they do and do not want to see is not great.
- sally mckay 10-19-2007 1:52 am

OVVLvverk. Neu.

(posted by VB via SM)
- sally mckay 10-19-2007 4:46 am

Ok, that's my new favorite website.
- rob (guest) 10-19-2007 6:40 pm

there is this great owl drawing by fuseli as a prep study for the night owl, but i cant find it online.

top five owl art:

1) sleep of reason produces monsters--goya
2) little owl--albrecht durer
3) great horned owl carving doug chiklit
4) Radiant Owl Kenojuak Ashevak
5) the comic owly


- anonymous (guest) 10-19-2007 11:10 pm

don't forget Ookpik!
http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-68-2389-14051/arts_entertainment/crafts/clip2
'Ookpik was the answer'.
- mnobody (guest) 10-21-2007 9:29 pm

Now that's a clip from the golden age of dynamic exciting CBC programming.
- L.M. 10-22-2007 10:44 am

Ok, that's the best thing I've seen all week.
- rob (guest) 10-23-2007 7:06 pm