Re: Reading Peter Kivy Nd - looking through that telescope

[armando baeza]

What I'm talking about, is, the fact that there are  many paintings  
that use the photos as a template,
instead of using them as an inspirational guide into some thing new  
and unique. As a sculptor , i don't
use photos either, though I'm always looking at the live human form.  
when I do work , It's the form of
the day. What ever the design calls for. I do use color in my patinas  
with little control over the outcome,
till I get what I like.  The fact that it is done at all, seems more  
important. Sculpture is a slow process.

mando





On Dec 7, 2008, at 6:34 PM, William Conger wrote:

There are a lot of assumptions in these remarks by Kate and Mando.   
None of them are anything other than value judgments, and very  
narrow ones at that.   Again, there are some paintings made from  
photographs in which the subject to be investigated and painted is  
the photograph. The aim is to make a painting that examines the  
information in the photograph.  In these cases, the aim is not to  
use the photo as a quick aid to organizing nature.  The photo is  
not a template, but the subject itself.

Flatness and "stupid color" (and what is stupid color?)  are not  
necessarily the result of using photograps in painting. Some other  
artists use the photo as an aid to painting the look of nature. As  
one who never uses a photograph in any part of my work, I don't  
care much whatever choices others make about using photos.  In my  
opinion, anything at all may be used to make art because it's not  
the means but the ends that matter. Also, I think it's an obvious  
fact that nature has always been mediated by some schema and these  
influence our perceptions. We should keep in mind that we always  
"construct" our sense impressions and we construct them according  
to both learned and intuited gestalt patterns. So even when today's  
artists don't use photographs in making their paintings, they are  
perceiving nature as if it were a photograph.  We can't go back to  
pre-photographic mental constructs of perception.

WC


--- On Sun, 12/7/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Reading Peter Kivy Nd - looking through that telescope
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], aesthetics-l@mh.databack.com
Date: Sunday, December 7, 2008, 6:53 PM
There's a difference between copying the photograph and
using it to make a
picture. If you copy,mando is quite right, it is flat, the
color is stupid
and very often the drawing is bad.   If you use   a
photograph as a piece f
information you find the perspective, you play with the
color within reason,
you
paint the air between pieces of architecture, you go back
and look at the
place
or you find a few more things out about it, you find things
in the photograph
you can't see and you wind up with a picture,not a copy
of a photograph.
Degas used them. Gerome used them,Bourgereau used them. It
depends I suppose
on
how atttached to to the sight of the physical world   as
seen by other people
you are. If you would rather paint your own world then you
probably wouldn't
use them.   Among other advantages   from on site painting
they mean you can
pick your vantage point   instead of having to submit to
the constrictions of
the site-and a lot of the real world doesn't lend
itself to   sitting
safely,nor is the air very clean. In my case it means there
are no gender
restrictions,since I can take as many pictures of
streetcars and locomotives,
or
highways, as I like without frightening anyone or having
them think   I'm in
the
way.
KAte Sullivan
In a message dated 12/7/08 6:47:36 PM,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


I'm referring to painting as paintings, not useing
the photo as a by
the numbers guide.
Or paintings that paint over a photo but not over the
eyes, when the
eyes are the
significant part of the painting and the artist calls
it a painting.
To me, essence of the
painting is destroyed. I cannot imaging where
photography will take
us in art even now.
Some of the best art for me is in photography by the
camera in orbit.
mando

On Dec 7, 2008, at 1:52 PM, William Conger wrote:

Lots of painting has been based on photos without
being "photo-
realist". This was true for some
Impressionists. Some more recent
painters deal with the photo as if it were
nature; that is, their
subject is the photograph, not what the photo
depicts. Thus we
can't always say the the photo "kills
the essence of nature" when
the photo itself is the "nature" being
depicted.  More generally,
it's almost impossible to find any post 1850
art that has not been
somehow influenced by the camera lens, except,
perhaps in some
isolated cultures.  Of course the influence
worked the other way
around too.  Early photography frequently
imitated painting and
sculpture.  And some might argue that the photo
lens itself
imitates Renaissance perspective (the one-eye
focus). What if the
Egyptians had invented photography in, say, 1600
BCE?  What would
their lens and images look like? Typical Egyptian
imagery?
WC





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