Art & Perception

Title: Paradise Garden

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size:  100×76 cm

Art and Perception is being visited by more and more people, presumably looking for thought-provoking conversations about art. Many of them come back for more(!), so by that measure we’re creating interesting content. And when I say we, I’m counting commenters as well as post contributors. The comments are, in fact, the life-blood of the site, in my opinion.

So it may be time to think about ways to make more of the most interesting content more easily accessible to everyone. That would require some change to the site, so everyone’s input is needed, including any readers who haven’t posted or even commented before. We do have a category system, which could use some work to improve its visibility and usefulness. But that seems to work better for narrow topic areas, whereas people coming to the site may be more interested in some diversity and serendipity potential within broad topic areas. Think of a well-honed medium like newspapers with sections for main news, local news, sports, classifieds, etc.

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“Why haven’t you been writing much?” I asked a many times published writer friend of mine one time.

“I need time to breathe.”

“Breathe?”

“Yes. But you have to know what I mean by ‘breathe.’ I mean sail a boat across an ocean, climb a mountain in the Himalayas, photograph lions in Africa… Something of magnitude. That does the trick. Then I’m ready again. Then there’s no stopping me.”

“Ah. I do know what you mean. I think I need to catch my breath too.”

What do you do to rekindle your artistic energy?

Mary Magdalene by Pietro Perugino, Pitti Palace in Florence, Italy. more… »

Detail from funeral pyre scene on an Attic Geometric krater, second half of 8th century BC

Man being eaten by a crocodile, first half of 21st century AD

The ceramic painting above I borrowed from Victor Bryant’s excellent ceramics website. The drawing on paper is by Fran, who is almost five years old.

The images are similar in that they both depict narrative scenes, and both make use of simple geometric shapes. The vase painting probably represents top quality artwork of its era, making use of a consistent representational system which covers this large vase and many others (presumably painted by many different adults working over many years). The children’s drawing is a one-of-a-kind sketch.

At first glance, the vase painting seems like children’s art made by adults. A key factor that distinguishes the adult work is the consistent repetition of patterns — across the detail, across the vase and across the historical period. There is a discipline here that is alien to the work of a child drawing as play. This use of repetition has substantial advantages. It imparts rhythm and complexity to the work that is lacking in Fran’s image. Repetition creates a decorative effect that masks to some degree the simplicity of the representation. For the sake of comparison, we can apply repetition to Fran’s image:

We can also isolate a figure from the vase painting. With these simple digital manipulation we have not transformed Fran into an Attic geometric vase painter, or turned the vase painter into a child. We have, I think, narrowed the gap.

What I think is interesting here is that what presumably passed for fine work in the 8th century BC probably could be made by children, if they were compelled to work within a disciplined productive system (as the adults were).

Discipline and rigid compliance to style are factors that are quite contrary to our modern notions of art, however. Is the ancient vase painting art, or is it nothing more than systematized children’s decoration?

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
—Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Ernest

Has art dealer Edward Winkleman become a cultural icon? If so, it seems we should pay attention to what he is saying . . .

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” …There are two prominent myths about photography: the myth that it tells the truth and the myth that it doesn’t.” This quote, from artist Jeff Wall, is from a deceptively small book with some big ideas, “Photography: A Very Short Introduction,” by Steve Edwards. The semiotics of photography has never had such an accessible vehicle as this book, which is largely the structure of it: the nature and meaning of the photographic artifact and act. That tension between truth and artifice, across the duality of documentary and artistic intent, has existed from the beginning of photography and before, and still confounds us. There is no one answer, only paradox and ambiguity.

Thanks to J.P. Caponigro for turning me on to this wonderful book. There’s a deeper look into the book over at “Politics, Theary and Photographs.”