Miller relies on himself for all proofs. He is the supreme authority. He can ramble on with his severely cramped opinions (Ansel Adams' work is "muddy", etc) and make wild assertions that to him bolster his anti-modernist iconoclasm, which is his prime reason for getting up in the morning. Above all, Miller wants attention and like the impudent kid at the dinner party, he will say whatever snide thing he can to upset the adults at the table. Trouble is, both the child and the adult are Miller himself.
You can share his opinion or not and if you share them Miller will immediately take them to some ludicrous extreme of childish stubbornness in order to assure his opinion will not be shared. Therein lies the paradox of Miller. He writes to enlist allies but whenever they appear too close he pulls away again with some newly hatched iconoclastic absurdity. His goal is to be completely alone with his self-justifying opinions. An crumpled and angry inner self is demanding the full-attention of his social self and will ruin any "party" to get it. wc ________________________________ From: Chris Miller <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 8:57:26 AM Subject: Re: dead photos- alive paintings >>But photographs can't accommodate the kind of aesthetic immersion which good paintings and drawings can. >>Not because they offer less of an opportunity for "filling-in" but because the photographer cannot draw a line or fine tune an edge, hue, or tone. (CM) >That's like saying that a tuba cannot produce the languorous sound of an oboe--not because a tuba offers less of an opportunity for filling in, but because it cannot draw out a seductive note or indolent tone.(MB) ----------- Perhaps that's why the tuba is included less often in orchestration - but I think a more obvious analogy would be bass drum and violin. >Photographs can produce effects that paintings and drawings cannot, and can "accommodate the kind of aesthetic immersion" that good paintings and drawings cannot. (MB) For one thing, I doubt that's true. And for another, my experience is that the effects a photograph can produce are not only different, but also less desirable than what is possible from painting or any of the other arts that you mentioned (dance, symphonic music, sculpture), all of which allow for greater aesthetic control than a camera. Ansel Adams may well have insisted that "the photo was made in the developing tray and he controlled that" , but the tones in his prints still seem muddy to me, compared with how Rembrandt, Goya, or Daumier can make black and gray feel like delicious colors. Perhaps you don't taste those colors or perhaps you don't miss them when they are absent. But I do. ____________________________________________________________ Save hundreds on an Unsecured Loan - Click here. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/BLSrjnxUQ98dxliMXktnS3r7fgJuqu JLcgqBFEmHgc2TmopWw8szDpxtUkw/
