From: Michael Brady <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Marks on Canvas
To: [email protected]
Date: Thursday, October 2, 2008, 10:35 AM
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?
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Michael Brady
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
