It looks like William's dogmatic formalism has gotten him into a hole, and even the loyal Brady has only helped him dig it a little deeper.
Once again, it's time to apply the Miller test for aesthetic discrimination. Change the nose of the Mona Lisa by only a millimeter or two -- and every healthy human over the age of 10 will be able to distinguish (and deplore) the difference. But change those lines in the background by a similar distance, and I'm doubting that even the visual artists on this list would be able to notice. While entire lines could be removed or added in a Jackson Pollack painting, and no one in the world would be the wiser. Unfortunately, William refuses to recognize that his aesthetic ideology is appropriate to his own school painting (for which he should be proud) but doesn't apply outside modern formalism or historically, what is usually called the decorative arts. Impressionable guy that I am -- the more I chat with William -- and look at his work and the other geo-form painters, the more interested I am -- just as my interest has grown in other non-figurative genres like calligraphy and painted ceramics. But once the thrill of new-ness is gone from modern abstract painting (and I think it left about 40-50 years ago) -- how can it still maintain it's appeal -- or more importantly -- how can it still maintain that high cultural value that elevates it above the merely decorative arts - and allows the practitioner to call himself an artist rather than a mere artisan. This is a real challenge for those who care about this genre. Trying to apply, as William does, its doctrines/ideologies to the rest of art history, is not going to get very far any more. The better strategy, I think, is to remove the notion of "merely" from the words "decorative" and "artisan" -- as Asian cultures have done -- as they allow a few brush marks on a tea cup to have equal or greater value to pieces that represent men or gods. ____________________________________________________________ Need cash? Click to get a loan. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/Ioyw6ijlffAn6kkSrbMxJ5dX3YvhSG XLsK2IyzZUgcTC10mtptJBoI/
