Sunday 17 December 2006

I think last night I heard someone argue (I was out partying) that to include skill in the set of criteria by which we judge paintings is undemocratic. I am going to have to ask them tomorrow if this was what they said. I would not bother with it except I think I heard it before.

It is an interesting feature of contemporary art that our predecessors opened the way for "anything goes" but that by and large we've lost their skills in drawing, handling paint and composition. So now although we have the freedom to paint anything we like, we can't paint anything we like because we don't know how to do it. The main skills of which I am thinking are the drawing and painting of figures straight from one's imagination, i.e. without a model, and the creation of complex figure compositions.

That said, there are hundreds of thousands of painters out there in the world and masses of these are really good. Even so, the comment stands.

Death march picture.

Yesterday before going out I changed the palace of the rich and powerful to a tree with them sitting in its branches - the fatties occupying the top of the tree offcourse. The palace looked awful and I needed more dynamism, also I need to do all I can to make the landscape look like a Reynolds or a Gainsborough. That said, there is a lovely Altdorfer picture of Suzanna and the Elders which has a magic palace in it.(Also see here. I might think some more upon this.