The Art of Nature and the Nature of Art
  • Musings on Life and Work in Progress
  • Find my gallery
  • Contact Me Directly

On Faking It  #1

4/2/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture"Homage to Tim Fitzharris" oil 24 x30


Last summer in the company of a very bright, engaging person who knew a lot about botany, I commented that I wanted to locate a particular wildflower because I couldn't remember its habitat and wanted to paint it in situ. Without a backward glance, she said "Just fake it. That's what art's about."

No.

Let me think about that.

No.

Let me first admit to personal bias.  Looking at  anything generic makes me long for specificity. If I am painting a maple tree, I try to capture its grandly symmetrical shape;  botanists refer to this quality as "opposite rather than alternate".   The pagoda trees  which volunteer on our property with predictable regularity should, on the other hand, look as if they are built on the principle of alternate but equal, like a tai chi stance;  I like them best set against a light backdrop like our neighbours' stucco, where in winter their elegant shapes sing.   I want white pines to be tall and irregular, their longest branches pointing to the south-east (in a pinch, a mature white pine can function as a rough compass if you are lost in the woods).  And tree trunks ALWAYS  have straight parallel edges and never taper up.  Point being, tree species have some things in common but many many differences.  In October you would never confuse a poplar forest with a maple-beech forest.  You would sense something is wrong but perhaps not what is wrong. It just doesn't feel true to your experience.

I propose that Art is about TRUTH of some sort.   So our next job is to think more about what constitutes artistic truth.  Let's begin by agreeing with Gerhard Richter's assertion that "I believe that art has a kind of rightness, as in music, when we hear whether or not a note is false."   The "bright, engaging person" may not have been an artist but I am pretty sure that she would have been vaguely bothered by the painting of a fake plant.

​More on this topic in March.  Good-bye February!!

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Archive

    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All
    ALLA PRIMA PAINTING
    ANIMALS
    ART SHOWS
    BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
    CHRISTMAS
    COLOUR THEORY
    COMPOSITION
    GARDENING
    GLAZE OIL PAINTING
    HOW SHAPE MATTERS
    INSPIRATION
    OUTDOOR LIFE
    PALETTE
    PHOTOGRAPIC REFS
    PORTRAITS OF CHILDREN
    PORTRAITURE
    SEASONS
    STILL LIFE
    SUBJECT MATTER
    THE FUNCTION OF TITLES
    THE HUMAN COMEDY
    THE ISSUE OF SIZE
    THIS OLD HOUSE
    TREES
    UNDERPAINTING
    YouTubes

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.