On Oct 2, 2008, at 11:14 AM, Chris Miller wrote:
William's interpretation is probably more accurate -- since he actually talked to the old guy half a century ago -- but your interpretation is reasonable -- given the common sense absurdity of calling the edges of a painting "the artist's first marks on the canvas"
Hoffman did NOT call them the "the *artist's* first marks." You labor on the periphera of stupidity every time you hit the Send button. The sides of the canvas serve as the first four marks (four, because most pictures are rectangles) because they are the edges of the shapes, the absolute termina of the canva. Lines--"marks--on the canvas divide the surface into areas and shapes, and the drawn lines, we have all been taught, represent *imaginary* things that define or depict the edges of shapes on a canvas. Let's say your first mark on a canvas is a diagonal line from slightly inside the upper left corner to slightly to the right of the bottom center. One mark, two trapezoids. And those trapezoids are formed from the three sides of the canvas and the diagonal line.
-- since it's a stretch to call such edges
I won't insult your pristine naovete by assuming that you meant that pun.
"marks" -- and one can't assume that artists make their own canvases.
An idiotic argument. (But I insult idiots.)
(and if the edges are "marks" -- why not the surface, smooth or stippled, of the canvas itself ? Why not the coat of primer ?)
Absurdity became de rigeur for art talk in the 20th C -- and accepting it is what separated the insider from the philistine -- but unfortunately, it led straight to Andy Warhol -- and finally to Damien Hurst.
Back to the periphera of spelling. Didn't someone mention this last week? | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady [EMAIL PROTECTED]
