I simply cannot accept that any one mark in a painting is less or more important than any other. The work is always a whole, with all the marks orchestrated together, each one relating to all the others, even those covered. Casual viewers may not understand that but people who paint paintings do. I should say people who paint good paintings do. Rembrandt was a master of that but to see how he did it you have to look at his paintings, not reproductions. Ditto for Delacroix. And ditto underlined three times for Leonardo.
I like Brady's analogy. Here's another: Which heartbeat would you give up as superfluous? The whole topic is ridiculous and too much the stuff of ignorance to be of any merit on this list, presumably a bit beyond the utterly naive level. It's Miller's topic and it goes nowhere in serious dialogue. It's the sort of topic one hears in the first week of the most elementary art appreciation course by the sort of student who admires Palin. And why it asked if the requirement re equal importance of marks is limited to AbEx? I did point out, for instance, that Hans Hofmann in reiterating that point about a work to be finished at any stage of development was repeating a dictum going back to the earlier Renaissance. And I didn't even mention the Egyptians who felt the same way. Art eras are not distinguished by subject matter as much but by some whole vision of Form. If one is without sensitivity to that wholeness of vision, one does not see art; with it one has access to all art. Here's an example: The expressiveness in late Gothic art relies on a convcave form, with scalloped recesses and sharp undercutting. In Renaissance art expressiveness relies on convex form, rounded bulges, and soft ridges. Of course there's much more but if you can see those differences you can begin to enjoy the greatly varied art of three centuries in Europe. WC --- On Mon, 10/6/08, Michael Brady <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: Michael Brady <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: Perceptual Cropping was Marks on Canvas > To: [email protected] > Date: Monday, October 6, 2008, 8:04 PM > On Oct 6, 2008, at 8:42 PM, GEOFF CREALOCK wrote: > > > Could it be that all marks are equivalent has more to > do with say, > > abstract expressionism than > > Asserting that all marks are equivalent doesn't mean > that all marks > convey the same descriptive or pictorial effect. Which > pieces of wood > are not important in the floor? Which bricks are less > important in the > wall? But which have more dramatic or picturesque effect? > > The painter claims responsibility for everything inside the > edges of > the canvas, whether the painting is an "abstract" > image of non- > descriptive shapes and colors, or a "realistic" > image with highly > descriptive shapes. In your other message, you muse that > people might > object if Mona's nose was longer. But we have a similar > example: > Matisse's painting of his wife with a green nose. The > critics sniffed > at it, but that painting demonstrates that the painter is > responsible > for all the marks, and they are all equivalent on the > surface of the > canvas. > > Reminds me of the shrewd quip, "My, we've had a > lot of weather this > year." > > > | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | > Michael Brady > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
