Ask Stape, Dec.14

Dear Stape: Subject after subject matter has already been handled by the great historic painters. So it seems to me that it becomes more difficult to establish one's reputation on subject matter (or the subject or the narrative or the picture) alone. I think that paint handling alone does not make the painting art. In the end, though, isn't it their paint handling that distinguishes one artist from one another especially if they capturing the same subject or image, say something like Mt. Washington.No?

signed; Loratadine

Dear Lora;

How many times haves I asked myself;

WOULD THIS BE A BETTER PAINTING IF I PUT A BURNING PHONE BOOTH IN IT?

There is a difference between meaning and the appearance of meaning. They are also not equal. Appearing smart is not the same as being smart either. Routinely we see young painters juxtaposing bizarre objects or dumping stinking offal on the floor of a gallery or mutilating various body parts attached to themselves or others, in the hope of baffling us into thinking how cerebral they are.
Those are examples of artists using "wild" subject matter to draw attention to themselves and their paintings. We have now had fifty years of this though, and there is so much outragous subject matter out in the art galleries that most of these attempts get lost in the crowd. Paintings by and large are more about HOW they are a picture of, than WHAT they are a picture of. Rembrandt could make a fabulous picture out of a sleeping pig. I think that trying to distinguish oneself with outrageous subject matter is a losing game and ultimately will strap you to a gimmick that will get real old.

The best subject matter is something about which you are passionate. I hate boats (they sink), but if you are excited about sailing, paint boats. Your enthusiasm may shine through your art. I happen to love being out in and recording the beauty of the landscape. There isn't too much out there that hasn't been painted before.

As you said, paint handling is a way that artists can distinguish themselves from another. It is a nicety unique to painting. Below is a painting that is full of handling, an Edward Potthast.

The brushwork of the artist creates the picture in the way the words of an author describe a scene in a novel. A great novelist may use one set of words, a lesser novelist another. But handling can make a painting into art, just as a well written passage may transform a mundane narrative into great writing. Think of the the descriptions of people and places in a Dickens novel. Handling is part of the artists decision making about what the painting is going to look like. A painting is about what it looks like.

IT IS DIFFICULT TO PLACE TOO MUCH EMPHASIS ON WHAT THE PAINTING ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE!

There are great painters who did not use visible handling. Ingres would be an example of that. Here is an Ingres ;

Ingres intention here is to have a clarity and perfection . He has created a cool stillness and expressed the rounded volumes of his subject. Sometimes Ingres figures take on a tubular or ballooned look when he takes this too far. Ingres might have agreed with the statement that there is "no handling in nature". Below is a Sargent head;

In this rapid portrait of Vernon Lee, Sargent uses a visible brushstroke to create the facets or planes of the head. That gives almost the opposite effect than did the Ingres. There is an informality, an exciting immediacy and a boldly stated structure that is really the subject, as much as the person sitting next to the canvas to be painted. This isn't so much a portrait of Vernon Lee as it is a John Sargent portrait. I don't know that I can find this fault in Sargent because he was such a fine academically trained draftsman, but when this method is poorly applied, the result is a sloppy, poorly thought out trick, with more velocity than description, more flash than integrity.

So you will have to decide which way YOUR temperament leads you. I am very interested in brushwork and form created by visible paint handling , but I am not a super loose painter. You may want to lay down enameled surfaces of infinitesimally subtle and graduated tones passing across marble still forms like the silent progress of dawns cold light across the pale cheek of an anesthetized virgin. Your call, babe.
......................Stape

images from artrenewal.org