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The Atman Art of Norman Adams.
The story of Norman Adams’ Creativity does not start or end with intellectuals. And it certainly does not start or end with the Canine Wisdom of so called “art experts.”
This story begins and ends with young children. Children who are too young to have been conditioned by society to react to outside-values like the words: illustrator, art and “non-art.”
In the early 1980's Norman Adams and I spent a lot of time enjoying each other's company, mostly in the outdoors photographing and enjoying all the beauty he has never taken for granted. The beauty that riddles nature that previously did not exist for me.
During this time he would tell me warm stories about the years he spent in New York. All sorts of wonderful stories about Salvador Dali almost suffocating doing publicity stunts in diving suites ... and Mafia bosses he knew socially through families and fellow illustrators, and entertainers that entertained them, like Harry Belafonte... and movie stars like Bette Davis.
He told me that while he was living in New York he would show his original paintings at shows the Illustration Society sponsored. The specific painting was the Puppet Still Life on the right. He said that Security at the show had to keep watching his painting, more than any other paintings, because young kids would want to go up to it and try to peal the paint off the painting. It happened more than just once, at more than just one show.
These kids tell us about Magic Realism. Magic applies to a painting that appears far more real than a photograph can be.
When a young child can pass dozens of fences with pealing paint without a care ... but then that same child comes to a painting with pealing paint painted into the picture and then has to compulsively try to peal the paint that is painted into the painting ... then this painting has magic, a magic that makes the painting appear more real than the real thing, like the pealing paint on real fences.
This story would need 25 years before it found its life.
In the early 1980's Robert Bateman was the rage in Wildlife Art. Norman said, on more than one occasion, that Bateman was the best thing that ever happened to not only Wildlife Art but with his “compositions” and “design” to art in general. He said that Bateman had taken the creativity and design of artists, like Andrew Wyeth, to new levels.
Norman added that he could not tell how good Bateman's paintings were without seeing his originals. Seeing prints or copies of the originals simply would not do, no matter how good they were. (See the story on the two cougars) This made no sense to me at the time but it was obvious to him... as obvious as it would be for a musician to hear a violin before he could tune it.
In 1987 it gave us a good reason to visit New York together, and then to the Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C., where Robert Bateman had his show. Norman Adams saw what Bateman had to offer and the rest is history. I was overwhelmed with the show.
After decades at the top of the illustration business, however, Norman was not impressed with the originals. To him most were painted big so that when they were reduced for publication, prints, they would look good. For him the prints of many of the originals “worked better” than did the large, if not over-sized, originals. This was just an simple observation that did not change – not even for a second – his respect of Robert Bateman's phenomenal contribution to art.
When Norman Adams came back from the Bateman show he painted a painting that we would take to wildlife shows to impress the public. The specific painting he painted for this show was the Grand Canyon with a Golden Eagle. It is an oil painting made up of two images. One is a 24x36 image of the Golden Eagle and the other image is a 36x52 view of the Grand Canyon. The biggest Wildlife Art Show he exhibited at was in Minneapolis.
At this show ... while most adults slowly walked past booths often without slowing, it was a rare person who did not stop and stare at Norman's originals, especially the Golden Eagle. Their reactions tell the story that Magic Realism needs to advance to another level that only the word Heaven-inside can describe.
On more than one occasion an adult would get angry and insist that the painting was a photograph. And only when I asked the adult to take a closer look were they surprised. But a few got even more hostile to realize that they had been fooled to think it was a photograph, because on closer inspection it had the magic that makes paintings more real than photographs.
It is the infants, however, that take this story of magic to another level that only the word Heaven can describe.
On three specific occasions I remember young 3-5 year old infants being carried by their parents that wanted to go and touch the Golden Eagle. When their parents stopped them, then two of them wanted to touch the Golden Retriever. The third threw a temper tantrum.
It only hit me 25 years later how unique this was, because of all the dozens of art shows I have been to ... even the Robert Bateman show... I had never observed a child wanting to touch one of the animals in the paintings, and at the Minneapolis show it happened at least three times.
Norman Adams sees things in original paintings that most of us cannot fathom. When he paints for its own reward he puts something into the painting that is its own reward. Infants can see some of it or perhaps even sense it ... while most adults are polluted with all sorts of outside values and cues that dictate their judgment. Like any painting coupled with the word Picasso will always look like a million bucks to most educated adults regardless of who painted it.
These kids tell us that there is something different in these paintings that most other wildlife-animal paintings lack, no matter how real they look, no matter how powerful their Magic Realism.
When an infant can pass pets without a care only to come up to a painting with an urge to touch the painted animal in the painting ... then this painting has more than just Magic Realism. And the only word that can describe it is the Heaven that is Inside, Atman Art.
The height of Atman Art has always been associated with spiritual experiences/values that the Iconoclasts of old fought and, like many Martyrs, died for... the same Atman Art that was so spiritually powerful -- to the limits of Samadhi -- that the Muslims banned it.
Norman Rockwell painted the one painting that might well have set the modern stage for this Atman Art.
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