The Art Class
Head Studies, Not Portraits
From the 1860s into the 1930s, a period that might be called the grand tradition of painting, the task of visual artists was to respond to visual sensations….Painters did not do portraits, as such, where the task was to achieve a likeness if not a visual expression of the very personality of the model. Instead, as Cèzanne inimitably advised, “Paint the head as you would a door knob.”
Not Incidental But Foundational
He emphasized “sincerity” and scoffed at artists searching for “success” saying that, “If [a painter] is concerned with success, he works with just the one idea; pleasing people and selling. He loses the support of his own conscience and is dependent on how others are feeling. He neglects his gifts and eventually loses them.”
The Ideology of a Banana
The banana taped to a wall by one artist, sold for $120,000 and then was eaten by a second artist. Must the first artist, then, replace the original banana with a phony second banana? Who would be so foolish to ask this question?...
“Go So Far, Start Another”
There should never be a finished canvas, just the different states of a single painting. To finish, to achieve – don’t those words have a double meaning – to terminate, to execute, but also to put to death, to give the coup de grâce? If I paint as many canvases as I do, it is because I am searching for spontaneity and when I have expressed the thing with a degree of happiness, I have no courage to add anything at all. – Picasso
Spontaneous and Structured
Schultz, in the painting seen above, demonstrates that the function of the method is not to churn out a tedious and predictable picture of the subject. The stages are not an assembly line. Instead, they break the sensory experience of the painter into pieces. Each piece functions as a prompt. The task of the painter is to put the pieces back together in a way that freshly realizes – makes clear – who she is. It is, fundamentally, a process of becoming. The painting happens along the way.
Eavesdropping
My job as a teacher is to break the painting process down into its constitutive parts and to lay bare those parts to illuminate the order and relationship of the parts for the students. So teaching has the unfortunate aspect of making an organic process seem mechanical. The required paradigm shift that I mention is this: as one paints, one needs to transition to a realm of wonder and excitement. It’s about expression, not production.
At Eternity’s Gate: Making Vincent Safe
Here’s the problem and the threat: Vincent’s professed purpose in life is to show “what’s in the heart of the lowest of the low.” He paints sincerely and independently, his beliefs are clear, his convictions resolute. In other words, Vincent can’t be bought. And whom does this type of artist threaten? …. Who are these people? Well, according to the sane Cézanne, they are the people who want to “get their hooks into you,” the “dirty bourgeoisie.” Oops, can’t tell that story. So Schnabel takes the story in another direction.
Think Variety
If our art is to be expressive, we need marks on the canvas that reflect the gamut of emotion that corresponds to the visual experience we are having…….All of the above pertains to line as well as color.
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