Modernist Painting

To get some stimulation, I am taking a course on modernist painting taught by the local artist, Charles Emerson. Each week, he assigns us to paint a painting using the aesthetics and painting method of a specific master. The first one above is after de Kooning. I learn to play with the paint, mixing them on canvas, texture them, utilize "accidents", and use bold brush strokes and marks. The second one is after Francis Bacon. I cannot paint his excruciatingly painful picture. Instead, I made this "Dick Chaney smile" using his technique. But I also use Mark Rothko like background. It is pretty wicked looking. I can not imagine who will hang a Francis Bacon in his/her home. Art and decoration are definitely different. Francis Bacon said (I am para-phrasing) in his BBC interview that abstract art can not be more than miracle and decorative, and it does not include human emotion so essential to all great art. His art certainly has plenty of that.