These are enjoyable galleries, to be sure. There are so many different approaches present, it's hard to make umbrella statements. Some of the landscape comparisions are arguably after-the-fact documentation of the given motif. Lautrec, I think, is able to develop the data the photo provides the most. Degas absorbs the photo the most stylistically. Not in a way I like, though. I find the portraits comparisions of Van Gogh's very frail works. Which is odd, because that is genre he is very strong in.
I myself will use reference material that I have photographed myself, because I can always return to the subject/site. These photos only happen after a sketching phase, after I figure out what information might be useful, that I don't have time (or am not fast enough) to record. Source material is something I don't think enough about. But it is where the rubber meets the road.
That's funny, I have works planned that will require a user manual. Not so people can 'get it', but so they can correctly interface with the work. Really what progressive art comes down to is that it is thought-technology.
I agree with you that the tendency of artists, especially in academic circles, to create work that requires an hour long mutant-theory-laden/name-dropping lecture to be engaging is dressed up horse shit used to justify generally lazy and uninteresting art. But I do not think that talking and reading about art making techiniques, particularly among a bunch of guys that fancy themselves artists to one degree or another, to be useless. I could write long rambling posts about paint facture and the effects of stand oil in varnishes if I thought anyone cared. Of course those types of conversations seem most appropriate in an art studio when prompted by another painter, not as part of some sort of press release.
"Paintings need to “LOOK” Cool and fresh." sounds like a marketing campaign for sneakers, bath tub detergent, or an energy drink.
That said, I have been using a lot more photos as starting points for paintings, a development that I am still not enitrely comfortable with. I like to sort through relatively ecclectic images and collect small stacks of them from newspapers, the internets, magazines, and most recently obtuse scientific publishings. Please do not confuse that tendency with the reather comman and irritating "I am a filter of pop-culture to high brow art in an increasingly visual world" cliche.
I think the key to photography as a tool in painting is to somehow take the mechanical image and make it your own. Especially remembering that it is just that, another tool: for inspiration of content, compositional organisation, or just conveniance in the lack of physical models (regardless of topic.)
Someone like Anselm Kiefer does this quite well, while Gerhard Richter (cough . . . terribly overrated . . . cough) does not.
How someone makes a painting is irrelevant to me. When I was in “art school” it mattered. Why is that? Why did I care if some one used an opaque projector on there painting? Why did I care if some one was making a painting from a photo? Why did I care if there painting was a computer print? Why did I care, what the reasons were for making the painting.
When I look at art it takes me 1 fucking second to tell if it sucks or if its rad.
If a person is invested in art production, then understanding varying approaches to art making are relevant. In the same way, a socioligist is interested in the way their colleagues do research. There is no obligation to be interested in such topics, particularly if your pursuits lay elsewhere.
So you do not care about how art is made anymore, you know what you like immediately regardless of process and intention.
Do you care enough to go out and look at art works and exercise that judgement? If so then maybe you should become an art critic, a curator, or better yet a collector. Go out and use your finely tuned sense of calling people on their bullshit (the trait of yours that I am most fond of by the way) to influence art around you.
"How someone makes a painting is irrelevant to me." I got it the first time. What is your point? If the point is that you do not care about art at all, then please stop writing about it because you are boring me.
...or Photo (as composition tool) + Painting = Better Painting? FIGHT!!!
11 comments:
These are enjoyable galleries, to be sure. There are so many different approaches present, it's hard to make umbrella statements.
Some of the landscape comparisions are arguably after-the-fact documentation of the given motif.
Lautrec, I think, is able to develop the data the photo provides the most.
Degas absorbs the photo the most stylistically. Not in a way I like, though.
I find the portraits comparisions of Van Gogh's very frail works. Which is odd, because that is genre he is very strong in.
I myself will use reference material that I have photographed myself, because I can always return to the subject/site. These photos only happen after a sketching phase, after I figure out what information might be useful, that I don't have time (or am not fast enough) to record.
Source material is something I don't think enough about. But it is where the rubber meets the road.
Oh, I forgot.
BRING IT ON!!!
That's funny, I have works planned that will require a user manual. Not so people can 'get it', but so they can correctly interface with the work. Really what progressive art comes down to is that it is thought-technology.
Pete. are your "works" paintings?
No, I was talking about dianetics. :)
Bob,
I agree with you that the tendency of artists, especially in academic circles, to create work that requires an hour long mutant-theory-laden/name-dropping lecture to be engaging is dressed up horse shit used to justify generally lazy and uninteresting art. But I do not think that talking and reading about art making techiniques, particularly among a bunch of guys that fancy themselves artists to one degree or another, to be useless. I could write long rambling posts about paint facture and the effects of stand oil in varnishes if I thought anyone cared. Of course those types of conversations seem most appropriate in an art studio when prompted by another painter, not as part of some sort of press release.
"Paintings need to “LOOK” Cool and fresh."
sounds like a marketing campaign for sneakers, bath tub detergent, or an energy drink.
oops, I forgot too . . .
BRING IT ON!
That said, I have been using a lot more photos as starting points for paintings, a development that I am still not enitrely comfortable with. I like to sort through relatively ecclectic images and collect small stacks of them from newspapers, the internets, magazines, and most recently obtuse scientific publishings. Please do not confuse that tendency with the reather comman and irritating "I am a filter of pop-culture to high brow art in an increasingly visual world" cliche.
I think the key to photography as a tool in painting is to somehow take the mechanical image and make it your own. Especially remembering that it is just that, another tool: for inspiration of content, compositional organisation, or just conveniance in the lack of physical models (regardless of topic.)
Someone like Anselm Kiefer does this quite well, while Gerhard Richter (cough . . . terribly overrated . . . cough) does not.
How someone makes a painting is irrelevant to me. When I was in “art school” it mattered. Why is that? Why did I care if some one used an opaque projector on there painting? Why did I care if some one was making a painting from a photo? Why did I care if there painting was a computer print? Why did I care, what the reasons were for making the painting.
When I look at art it takes me 1 fucking second to tell if it sucks or if its rad.
If a person is invested in art production, then understanding varying approaches to art making are relevant. In the same way, a socioligist is interested in the way their colleagues do research. There is no obligation to be interested in such topics, particularly if your pursuits lay elsewhere.
So you do not care about how art is made anymore, you know what you like immediately regardless of process and intention.
Do you care enough to go out and look at art works and exercise that judgement? If so then maybe you should become an art critic, a curator, or better yet a collector. Go out and use your finely tuned sense of calling people on their bullshit (the trait of yours that I am most fond of by the way) to influence art around you.
"How someone makes a painting is irrelevant to me." I got it the first time.
What is your point? If the point is that you do not care about art at all, then please stop writing about it because you are boring me.
Write about art that you think is rad.
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