Some artistic myths eviscerated

I am illustrating tonight's posts with the nudes of Anders Zorn, which I absolutely love. Their very restrained color and play of warm notes against grays is so beautiful.

The images are courtesy of artrenewal.org if you have never found them, go check em out! But come back, they are the worlds largest online museums and they have been a continuing help in my creation of this blog, and I am grateful to them. I would also like to give a tip of the hat top the folks over at FASO who have been directing visitors to me, thanks to Clint and Lori, go check them out.

Tonight I would like to tell you about some popular sayings about art with which I disagree. I am not saying you should disagree with these also, but you might be interested in why I do. I would like to examine some ideas that float about our studios unchallenged. Some of which might be doing us more harm than good. Be forewarned these are sacred cows I am about to throw on the grill.

• Happy accidents, I don't think I want accidents happening in my work, again you might, I don't. In fact I think that

NOTHING GOOD GETS INTO A PAINTING BY ACCIDENT.

I think this idea really came into prominence during the 40's and 50's when their were so many watercolorists working in what was then called the AWS style. I can't recall any 19th century texts advising the artist towards the accidental. There was a popular style of loose watercolor that at its best in the hands of Andy Wyeth was wonderful, but a whole generation of blotters and razor blade scratching tricksters followed. There were so many of those watercolorists doing rusting farm machinery and barnsiding that a whole "look" ruled many of the galleries and shows for a generation. When that stuff went out of style it took almost all the watercolor market with it. There are very few watercolors in the galleries I frequent. That's really too bad, because watercolor is a wonderful medium and folks like Sargent, Homer and a whole boatload of wily Englishmen like Richard Parkes Bonnington did marvelous things in it.

I want to be as deliberate as I can, I don't want unexpected and unplanned "accidents" happening in my paintings, I want the entire thing to be crafted with intent. If the point of a work of art is self expression , decisions I make are more self expressive than things which happen without my personal intent. I am a somewhat loose painter with visible brushwork and not a super tight "realist" painter, but I want to control what my paintings look like, and not share that control with happenstance. I don't believe I see a lot of accident happening in these Zorn paintings for instance.

• It takes two artists to make a painting, one to paint it and another to stop him before he ruins it.
  

My feeling is that you can go on working on a painting as long as you continue to make good decisions. There is a lot of work I see today which is I think "undercooked" particularly plein air work. I often see pieces I wish were more resolved or more carefully made. Richard Schmid has pointed out that loose is how a painting looks and not how it is made. While he is evidently a one shot painter, that which he chooses to resolve is RIGHT. I am not saying all paintings should be tight as a drum or highly detailed, but I do think more paintings today suffer from being blown out in sloppy haste hoping that some magic will make them excellent, rather than carefully and lovingly created by an informed craftsman who spares neither effort or if need be time. Although time spent on a painting will not make it good, I intend that none of my paintings be weak because of lack of effort. I do have control over that, even if my efforts kill this painting, working my way through the problems in it arms me for the next time those problems appear. Many of my paintings are still weak, I admit, but not because I shorted them on time or effort.

I BELIEVE A PAINTING HAS NO REASON TO EXIST OTHER THAN THAT IT BE WELL MADE.

• Originality is the most important thing in a work of art.
  

Now don't get me wrong, I am not against originality, but I have seen a whole lot of art that had only that. In working so hard to be singular, some artists, particularly in the art schools have avoided learning their craft. Their paintings avoid having all of the things that make great paintings great. Many times in art school, and just after, I heard from other young artists how they didn't want to learn from anyone else, because that would damage their originality. For most of them that was a fatal attitude for their artistic development. I think it is a kind of intellectual laziness. Wouldn't it be better to learn everything you can, absorb ideas and methods like a sponge? Then later when you are making your art, you can choose which ideas will be useful in making each particular painting. Knowing something does not force you to use it. It is very helpful to know how a great artist before you solved a particular problem, even if you intend to use a different solution yourself.

I think painters should not be imitators of other artists, but that does not mean they shouldn't have the same qualities that made those other artists great.

I GET WAY TOO HUNG UP ON WHAT THE PAINTING ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE!

So if I don't like what the painting looks like, how "original" it is means zip to me.

"Amateur paintings are all alike". I can't remember who said that, but there is a lot of truth in that. These artists all have left the same things unlearned, so their work all carries the same faults, poorly handled edges, overmodeled halftones, lack of form, mistaken anatomy, poisonous or discordant color, weak designs and uncertain perspective are some examples of faults many amateurs painting share.

• Great artists must starve and die in obscurity.
  

You go starve and die in obscurity, I've got kids to feed. The contempt that young artists and some pedants have for working artists and illustrators who do make a living is misguided and malevolent. Most of the great artist in the museums were very successful in their lifetimes. There are famous exceptions like Van Gogh, who surely chose it, as his brother was an art dealer . But Monet had five full time gardeners on staff and Picasso made a fortune. The newspapers routinely report on another contemporary painter, selling a piece for staggering sums, only to be exceeded quickly by another selling his art for an even greater sum.

You don't have a problem with the Rolling Stones making a living do you? Hows about Mark Twain, Frank Loyd Wright, Kathryn Hepburn or Cole Porter, should they have starved? they didn't, they were well payed, deserved it and made great art just the same.

Well I imagine I have rocked the boat enough for one night , I believe I will swim to shore. See you tomorrow.