As the phrase goes, "Don't look at me." Just how the hell Updike would
accommodate Americans like Rothko, Pollock et al, I'm not sure. He might say,
"Well,
they were American, but they weren't really American PAINTERS."
In a message dated 5/31/08 9:15:37 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> If American art (i.e. painting) is especially "liney" -- why would it be
> so?
>
> Perhaps, because lines can be used to emphasize an action/narrative - and
> can
> define details sharply enough that we can easily recognize each by name:
> "button" or "plane tree" or "ear lobe".
>
> This seems more like the world of shop-keeping than of aesthetics --
> prompting enthusiastic responses like "isn't that still-life just like an
> old
> letter taped to a wall?" -- or "isn't that caricature just like Barbra
> Streisand?"
>
> America has had many great painters -- but they all seem to be struggling
> upstream against this current - even when they go "abstract".
>
>
> The line quoted in the subject ("..taking nature as his only
> instructor..")puts a nice Romantic spin on it -- but it's not especially
> accurate -- i.e. American artists have usually been well schooled, and very
> interested in the European artworld - including the fashion for
Romanticism.
>
>
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