William.
I think you understood very well what i tried to say, but you have
the words to say it better.
give me a little credit.
thanks
mando
William wrote;
"There are symbolically endless symbolic ways to symbolically
preserve the symbolic
essences of symbolic things as symbols."
On Sep 26, 2009, at 7:26 AM, William Conger wrote:
What is the point of making these summative pronouncements, as if
you are quoting Biblical texts? They are worthless unless backed
up by explanation, analysis, reasoning, demonstration. I mean what
sort of insight or knowledge is revealed by the statement, "There
are endless ways to preserve the essence of things with
symbols..."? Let's take a look: Endless? Ways? Preserve?
Essence? Things? Symbols?
Each of those words begs for explanation in context.
If there are endless ways to do something then any way at all is
correct, since endless, a synonym for infinite, stands for all that
is or can be. And ways are means and if the means are endless then
so are the ways, which renders the term absurd, since any way at
all will serve as a means. To preserve something is to set it
apart for that which is not preserved. How can some things be
preserved and others not if the class of things being preserved is
everything, introduced by "endless" and "ways"? Essence is either
contained by object-hood or surrounds object-hood. Like "thing" it
it is a term that must be defined in metaphoric form since it can't
be limited to demonstrable elements. I'll ignore the word things
(objects) since it is clearly a word that defies description
limiting it to either material or non-material objects and that
makes it ambiguous in the absence of limiting terms. Symbols is, of
course, the biggie word here. It encapsulates
all the other words because we have no choice except to use
symbols to express anything at all. It is the redundant word since
it is the silent prefix to all other words in the sentence you
wrote. Thus: There are symbolically endless symbolic ways to
symbolically preserve the symbolic essences of symbolic things as
symbols.
If you fellows want to trade pompous little aphorisms back and
forth it's OK with me, but don't presume that they have any value
at all in aesthetic inquiry.
WC
________________________________
From: armando baeza <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc: armando baeza <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, September 25, 2009 10:17:20 PM
Subject: Re: Only an academic figure drawing can be wrong
There are endless ways to preserve the essence of things
with symbols that may not even resemble the original
thing it represents and expresses. yet the essence remains.
mando
On Sep 25, 2009, at 6:59 PM, Boris Shoshensky wrote:
Anything extreme is not working. Distortion or rules.
Boris Shoshensky
---------- Original Message ----------
From: armando baeza <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc: armando baeza <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Only an academic figure drawing can be wrong
Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:18:25 -0700
One may also say, that extreame distortion is not as important as
good design.
mando
On Sep 23, 2009, at 9:53 AM, Boris Shoshensky wrote:
Distortion based on skill is a good way to go.
For me 'wrong' is when the function of a creative harmony is
absent.
Creative distortion is not wrong. 'David' is anatomically
incorrect.
But give me that distortion all the time. The problem part of
academic drawing
is lack of expression, the good part is technical skill.
Distortion based on
skill is a good way to go.
Why is this an interesting issue? For you as an artist it is not.
As a
teacher it is important, I think.
Boris Shoshensky
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Only an academic figure drawing can be wrong
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:18:03 -0700 (PDT)
What is any discipline of life drawing? There's something wrong
about the
noses in Greek Classical Art, so how is that the Greek Profile
became so
commonplace in academic art? Incidentally, there's something
wrong about
almost all of Classical Greek art with respect to anatomic
accuracy. The Greek
artists relied on tradition, purpose, and external observation
and not on the
internal facts of anatomy or strict objectivity. They made highly
distorted
figures for both practical and expressive purposes.
The reason people can tell if the nose is wrong, but probably not
be able to
tell if the arm or toes are wrong has to do with the relatively
large area of
the human brain devoted to face recognition.
If you say, "Depict the human body according to these
rules" (whatever rules
you list), then when the result does not conform to those rules,
the result
is wrong. Academic life drawing instruction often followed such
rules -- both
pertaining to measurement and style and to media techniques. Why
is this an
interesting issue?
wc
________________________________
From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
Sent: Monday, September 21, 2009 11:56:42 AM
Subject: Re: Only an academic figure drawing can be wrong
In a message dated 9/21/09 10:32:14 AM, [email protected]
writes:
By "academic", I'm not referring to a specific academy or canon,
but to
any
discipline of life drawing. So a drawing is not "wrong"
because it
violates
any specific academic criteria, and I wasn't limiting such
judgment to
those
who are even familiar with much artwork or the concept of "art"
at all.
"There's something wrong about the nose" is a comment that might
come from
anybody able to see and speak.
I thought you said you were emulating Pontormo and Bronzino both
of whom
