Sunday, June 24, 2007

Revisiting the Vanishing Point

"Everybody can talk, but few can paint."

Marshall McLuhan in his introduction to THROUGH THE VANISHING POINT.

"The hand has no point of view."

When we paint in order to depict the world we paint abstractly.

Painting is the act of applying paint.

*

What remains--the dried residue--lacks action.

1 Comments:

Blogger jh said...

dried residue-lacks action

yes and no

van gogh
was master of depicting the
movement of things
fields of grain
even the "energy" surrounding
the human face

and the physicist would argue
that the process of decay begins
immediately
nothing is static
the cracks will be visible shortly

why then the recent preoccupation with
photorealism
a boring exercise in perceived
visual perfection

to paint is to play
and that play is a serious thing
yet every good painter must know
if he is selling his work
that he is getting away with murder
for it is a useless exercise

requiring utmost skill
to be good
it is almost as useless as music

and why the nearly religious
devotion people have for paintings these days
the artist if he or she is good
is thought to be a prophet
or a visionary a mystic of sorts

they are all children
messing with paint
that is all

2:02 PM  

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