Art & Perception

A friend recently put it to me that it was very hard to show paintings and photographs in close proximity to each other without it being to the detriment of both. I hadn’t really considered this before, but I could see the problem. Further, it seems to be a problem with those two specific media. Photos and sculpture, for example, don’t fight in the same way.

I’m not sure that I’ve got to the bottom of this yet, but my working hypothesis is that they are too alike, yet not so similar that they complement each other. By which I mean that you are very unlikely to walk up to a statue and think that you are looking at a photograph, but it is possible to confuse photos and paintings.

If I have been looking at paintings and turn to look at a photo, then the surface of the object seems dull and lifeless. I’m looking for texture that isn’t there. And in the other direction, if I look at a painting expecting it to be be a photo, then I can be disappointed by the lack of detail.

There is also a problem of scale. There are large photos and there are small paintings, but generally photos want to be smaller than paintings do. This means walking up to them more closely, and in a mixed display I’m not sure where to stand. Obviously, I resolve the problem picture by picture, but it is unsettling.

I don’t think the same confusions apply to drawings and photos. These are alike enough that the texture and scale differences are reduced and don’t grate.

I don’t think we were making this up.

Also posted in photostream.

Recently we looked at one of Hanneke van Oosterhout‘s finished still life paintings. There were a number of excellent critiques. The painting was already sold, however, so comments could have no further impact on that picture.

Now Hanneke is in the progress of making another still life. It is not yet finished, which means that your comments could help her make this painting better.

We can follow the painting’s development over several days. more… »

This landscape painting by Tracy Helgeson caught my eye. This work is something of a new departure in Tracy’s work, I think. She often works on the border between abstraction and reality, but in this painting there is a cross-over, albeit a subtle one. The result is almost unsettling, but I like it. A question for her is, does she want to go further with this? There is also a psychological element to this landscape painting, as I see it, which captures my attention.

Tracy’s blog raises interesting questions about what it means to be an artist today. In the past, artists liked to cloak themselves and their work in mystery. Tracy is open about her work (good, bad, unfinished) and her difficulties in the process of creating and selling. There is a refreshing and direct quality to her writing style that makes mysterious 20th century artists seem a bit comic in comparison. Is Tracy a good example of what 21th century artists will be doing, or should she hide her unfinished work and cultivate a more refined public image?

In a comment elsewhere, I said, “I am not much interested in technique any more. … Many other artists will always have better technique than me, but when people are walking by, which works make them stop, look, and say, ‘Wow?'”

Does technique really matter?

I often remember something a pianist friend of mine confessed. He said that for most of his career, the way he kept track of how well he was doing was by keeping a log of the number of hours practiced.

That, he said, was a catastrophic error. He should have been keeping count of only one thing: the number of concerts given.

As a painter, I could translate that to: Number of works sold for how much each.

The whole last century of art could be described as an anti technique reaction. When I look at those perfectly executed paintings of the nineteenth century with all those naked boys and girls thinly disguised as gods and goddesses preaching some insipid moral lesson, I am glad we don’t paint that way any more. Why does it matter at all how well you paint it if no one is interested in what you have to say?

What difference does it make how well you can play the piano if no is there to hear?

In another recent post, things got really nitty gritty technical. Regarding that technical stuff, Lisa Call commented, “For me this type of thinking is very left brain and analytical ‘I need to place this color next to that one and then X will happen if I also do Y and Z.’ But I find that my best work is made if I can shut off that part of my brain and just go with what feels right and not stress each small step.”

I thought that comment was revealing. I hope you don’t mind, Lisa, for bringing it up here again. It’s a succinct restatement of the paradox. Technical stuff means being all concerned about technique, but is that what makes art, art?

This post also appears on rexotica.

testing, 1, 2…

I recently asked how John Singer Sargent managed to capture the incredible sense of luminosity of the tent in A Tent in the Rockies. I’ve seen the painting in person; trust me, the interior of the tent looks even more luminous in the painting than it does in the web reproduction above.

Karl made two excellent comments about what’s going on, one dealing with contrast of chromaticity and one based on the viewer’s inferences about the tent material. I think those two comments are on the right track, but I also think there’s something else going on – I think Sargent is taking advantage of some quirky properties of the human visual system.

Check out this web page: http://web.mit.edu/persci/gaz/; if you don’t get the pop-up window (I didn’t) click on the ‘click here’ link as directed. Run the little animated demos, which are all about the sort of effect I thinking Sargent is using to good advantage. These demos (and the embedded explanations) are a fascinating exploration of some of the properties of our visual system.

It looks to me like Sargent has cleverly chosen the composition of this work to be similar to the ‘simultaneous contrast’ illusion – the bright, translucent area of the tent is cunningly surrounded by a region of darker ‘shaded’ canvas, so that the central portion seems even brighter.

I’ve found my minimal understanding of some of these effects to be useful when I’m adjusting a photo to be printed. I’d imagine they’d be similarly useful to any visual artist who has to contend with trying to eke out an expanded sense of brightness or darkness from a medium with fairly limited brightness range. Does the painting world know about this stuff and use it on an everyday basis?

A dialogue with Rex Crockett, Arthur Whitman, and Karl Zipser; artwork by Rex Crockett.

KARL: This is the first post at our team blog’s new location, ArtAndPerception.com. What should we talk about?

ARTHUR: The topic of Art & Perception‘s future is perfect.

REX: What do you think we could accomplish? In what direction do you think we should go?

KARL: The most obvious goal for most of us is to become the best artists that we can be. Another goal is to make money doing it, or at least to survive. If Art & Perception is to be useful, rather than a distraction, it should help us with these key goals.

REX: Karl, interaction with other artists will definitely help with these goals you state. With other artists, it’s possible to explore new ideas before you take action on them. Other artists are more willing to experience edgy work. They can see through the rough edges to the inner jewel. more… »