I wanted to let anyone who might be interested what is up with this blog. I’ve just finished lengthy interviews with George Nick and Eric Aho. George Nick talked about his experience studying with Edwin Dickinson, his friendship with Fairfield Porter as well as talking at length about his work. Eric Aho talks about his current show at the DC Moore Gallery in NYC and gives a fascinating back story to the many aspects of his paintings. I should have these interviews posted sometime next week if all goes well.
In the mean time I will post a few quick links, videos and artists of interest. If anyone has a topic they would like to initiate for discussion please let me know and we can see about posting that as well.
Painting Perceptions was started in 2009 by Larry Groff to promote the ideas, practice and experience of painters working from observation in a modernist vein from around the world through interviews, essays, videos and community. It later evolved to include imagination-based and abstract painting as well.
>If anyone has a topic they would like to initiate for discussion please let me know and we can see about posting that as well.
I was thinking a while ago about suggesting a topic on sincerity in art in general, and painting and sculpting in particular.
What exactly people want to say when they say “this panting (or a painter) is sincere”…and how does it (sincerity felt in one’s work) relate to the a) overall look of the work and b) the way it is technically executed.
I have my opinion on it, of course, but I wished to stir up discussion in order to (hopefully) make the term more clear.
Reading the books and discussions on artist’s forums I noticed that – generally speaking – the works of past and present artists who favored (more or less) high finish were rarely talk about in terms of sincerity or honesty, unlike the works executed in (more or less) loose manner.
Are the high finish (I don’t necessarily mean super tight works and photo realism here) and honesty/ sincerity mutually exclusive?
I’d like to hear what others think.
I like your suggestion for this topic Valentino. I’ll think about how to best frame the subject it in a post soon. In the meantime anyone interested can jump right into to it here.
I’ve been thinking about sincerity from a somewhat different angle recently but similar to what you’re saying. In particular, when looking through magazines such as American Art Collector I see many works where I might question how sincerely interested the artist was in their own work, sometimes the painting seems so cliched and boring that lack of intellectual and emotional engagement is obvious. It’s often hard to pin down exactly but the over riding feeling I have is that this artist is trying to please the gallery more than anything, they found some subject matter that appeals to some client base and then its just a matter of churning them out. So much of the art (but not all by any means) seems commercial in intent. I don’t think making something that sells well negates sincerity but if that making the sale is the main reason behind the work it will come across being insincere. I think this is true for all flavors of painting, realist, abstract – loose, tight.
I agree with your views on that particular type of paintings. Some of them may be potboilers, other obviously cater to the market. I often compare art of the past with contemporary art trying to find common points and differences. Of course, many great artists of earlier eras made potboilers as well, but though those pieces were commercial in intent, lot of them (not all, though) were exquisite, even great. (*)
Not so with majority of contemporary commercial art. Something is missing. Skills, talent, attitude, artistic standards…
(*)Van Huysum first springs to mind. There were many others as well.
Just to myself I often describe paintings I feel especially touched by as being “sincere.” In exceptional art, the artist has somehow managed to reach deep into her or his unconscious and give concrete form to part of their personality and experience that is usually unknowable. In turn the forms they have painted stir forgotten or unknown parts of the viewer’s unconscious and let’s the viewer’s emotions flow more quickly.
All this is very hard to speak about without descending into something sounding like mumbo-jumbo. Yet “sincerity” is a real thing, both in life and in art.
I loved Larry’s comments about his difficulties with some of the art in the particular magazine he mentions. A lot of us have had the feeling he describes.
There are many academic painters who can paint and draw the figure and whatever else precisely and with impeccable classical technique. Yet many or most people find much of this painting boring and lifeless. These academic artists are no doubt sincere in their desire to make the best painting possible yet the sincerity doesn’t often come across in the work. I often respond much more to a painter like say, Albert Pinkham Ryder, who probably had the worst technique possible – yet his vision is emotionally engaging and authentic. Of course this all probably has more to do with the particular artist’s temperament than it has to do with the manner of painting. Sargent had impeccable classical technique but his work was not only well made but holds you to it with emotional engagement. Actually, the more I think about it, exceptional art, as Philip calls it, is always sincere. Maybe sincere is too subjective of a word to be of any real use in judging a work of art.