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focus on contemporary painting sculpture and architecture,
the most traditional, visual art forms. Of course, many
observers tell us that these have been surpassed or marginalized
by new mediums. And it is certainly true that today there
are many visual art mediums besides painting with claims
on our attention. There is photography, conceptual art,
video art, performance art, earth art, installation art,
body art, computer art, internet art and more. The proliferation
of mediums is just another manifestation of our expression
of freedom. But to me, painting, sculpture, and architecture
are still the heart and soul of contemporary visual culture.
Only with them does spirit fully possess dead matter. For
every doubting Thomas, they provide the most palpable proof
of the living spirit. |
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XXXXXPainting has a special place.
What we call western painting, painting as the expressive statement
of a great artistic personality, began with Giotto at the beginning
of the fourteenth century. Painting has been the main vehicle
for most of the great, visual art geniuses like Leonardo, Rembrandt,
El Greco, Van Gogh, Picasso, and Pollock. And in the modern world
where there are so many different mediums, painting provides a
kind of anchor. For no matter how innovative, the painter must
love to paint, to handle that most magical and metamorphic of
all substances, and thereby master or invent a complex, craft-like
discipline. This process gives paintings a certain aesthetic density,
weight, and focus. So too, any new painting, no matter how original,
automatically falls into a context including a tradition going
back 30,000 years. Painting, like music, is universal, directly
available without the barrier of language. Together with its portability
and singularity, these features make paintings the ultimate prize
in a free, global market place. Paintings are the most expensive
and sought after of all objects. So too, the relative speed with
which a great painting can deliver its message seems right for
our hectic times and our impatience for expression. Anyone who
has ever worked in a museum knows how much the public loves to
see paintings, and, of course, every child loves to paint. Doubtless
there will always be empty walls staring back at us asking for
something great to look it. Hand made, intimate, unique, a painting
offers a concrete spiritual presence directly expressive of the
artist’s mind and body in a way that photography and digital-based
mediums cannot. In a world inundated with repeatable, interchangeable
and disembodied images, painting might be said to offer a touchstone
for the really real.
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of what I have said above can be said of sculpture too. But sculpture
is far more demanding and great sculptures are far rarer. Clement
Greenburg wrote that sculpture is the archetypal Modernist art
because of its "autonomy". Perhaps. But painting has
usually been dominant. Sculpture lacks painting's visabiltiy and,
unless it be small or outdoor sculpture, is more or less homeless
and utopian. Herein lies its grandure.
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