In a message dated 9/4/09 2:06:24 PM, [email protected] writes:
> Painting, through its visible brushstrokes or modes of paint application > reveals facture. No matter how refined, any paint mark obscures some > information that is "filled in" by the viewer (merely an exaggerated form of > the same thing in photography). Looser paint applications make facture much > more obvious and invite the viewer to project subjective information (what I > call make believe) to the work, making it seem to > embody the viewer's "aliveness". Thus to the extent that an artwork > reveals its facture, in one way or another, is what enables us to imagine > projecting our own sense of "aliveness" to it, as if we experience ourselves > anew in the 'mirror' of the artwork. This can be true, I think, in all the > arts. Even in writing, when the arrangement of words, as words and sounds, > their facture, invites us to make-believe our experience as re-made by those > words. > > I'm for reviving facture as a fit topic for aesthetic discussion. It is > also a plea for some return to logical and intellectual acuity, steering us > away from such foolish constructions as photos are dead because they are > not paintings. Ugh! > It does sound a lot like discussing marks..... Kate Sullivan
