Is Painting Dead?
When I was a kid, all I wanted to draw was super heroes. I drew Batman & Robin, Spider-Man, Hulk, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, etc. I drew all the things I loved, as often as I could.
As I got a little older, I started drawing all my favorite athletes in all their athletic glory, Michael Jordan, Jerry Rice, Jason Williams (White Chocolate), Mark McGwire, etc. I’d even write letters that went along with the drawings, and mail them to their teams hoping to get a response.
Now, as an adult, I still find as much joy in drawing and painting as I ever have. It really is a magical process to transform a flat, 2-Dimensional surface, into a 3-Dimensional looking image. The complexity of doing so is such a difficult, and tedious process that it takes most people years or decades to really master.
There is, however, a problem with painting.
Ever since the early to mid 1800’s when the first camera was invented, painting has had to evolve. Simple recreations of life through paint would now have to compete with the camera’s ability to do the same thing at a quicker speed. And as camera’s have evolved over the decades, so has painting.
It began with the impressionists in the late 1860’s consciously deciding that it was no longer necessary to render every detail of an image. They boldly left their brushstrokes and big globs of paint visible to the viewer. They began taking their paintings outside and working in nature. This was very controversial at the time. Critic Louis Leroy even stated, “Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished (than these paintings)!”
After this followed abstraction, and cubism in the early 1900’s. You saw characters like Picasso painting people with both eyes on one side of the face, and totally distorted features. They began to express more feeling into their work. Then came the Abstract Expressionists who completely incorporated emotion into their work, sidestepping the need, at times, for any distinct representation of anything. Jackson Pollock splattered his feelings all over the canvas creating a blurry mess. He worked rapidly, and with his canvas on the floor, rather than on an easel. Then came the pop artists. People like Andy Warhol painted pop culture all over canvases in mass quantity, from Campbell’s Soup Cans to paintings and screen prints of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe. They created artistic commentary about how the culture was evolving, advertisement was booming, and fame was getting more and more famous.
Now, we’re left with what? What’s left for painting? What’s left for art in general, and why have it around? We now have computers, and smartphones, and access to videos, and online articles. All the information we could ever want is at the tip of our fingers. Why do we need painting? Is art dead? Is painting dead?
I would argue no. In the words of Kenneth Baker, San Francisco Chronicle Art Critic,
Painting is one of the few objects of interest that we have now that really requires us to slow down, if we hope to enter into them...
… It’s just that everyone is in such a frantic rhythm these days as the assumed rhythm of life that it seems like a 2 minute discussion of one thing is a lot of time… That’s a lot of time to sustain your attention with one thing. Well, not with painting it’s not. Good paintings keep giving up surprises and contradictions and mysteries and questions for years as you see them and lose sight of them and regain sight of them and lose sight of them again…
… And anyone who owns a painting knows this… or any decent work of art, it becomes invisible to you if you live with it long enough, and then suddenly BANG! It hits you one day, and you go WOW, what’s this strange object in my presence? How did I let this into the house? What was I thinking? I spent money on this?… and then you give it a new chance and it begins to insinuate itself maybe in some completely unfamiliar way. And you say, uh huh, maybe there’s something to this after all? Maybe I wasn’t as wrong as I feared?
- Kenneth Baker, San Francisco Chronicle Art Critic
Painting is just as applicable now as it’s always been, because it’s counter cultural to our tech saturated fast paced lives. Art has always thrived on being countercultural, case in point, all the various movements in art history previously mentioned.
Painting stands in contrast to our smart phone driven lives. It’s a connection to our past, and a reminder to slow down. As our world speeds up, painting slows down. As our world simultaneously disconnects while connecting, and turns more digital, painting remains traditional and tangible. You can run your hands along the surface of a canvas and feel it’s texture. You can stare closely at each brush stroke and imagine the intensive time and skill it took to create that picture. You can imagine the world presented inside the work of art.
Painting is not dead, but it’s also doesn’t try to fit in. It unabashedly stands out. It creates it’s own path, and tells it’s own story. Coming into the ownership of an original work of art from a respected artist is not as easy as simply giving a ‘like’ or a ‘follow’ on social media. It takes time, and resources, but it’s an investment that holds. A good work of art can remain in your home for a lifetime, and be passed on for future generations. A good work of art, is a snapshot in time that lasts much longer than a post on your social media.
Collecting art is not for everyone. It’s for the people who consciously choose to slow down, and to question the world around us. It’s for the people who appreciate beauty, and invest their resources with purpose.
I like how painter, Wayne Thiebaud puts it:
“Art is an unnatural act. Painting particularly because you’re lying all the time. It’s wonderful fiction.
Painting doesn’t do anything… So it’s easy to say painting’s dead. And a lot of people like to say that… But you’ve got to go there like it’s Lazerus and view yourself as the one that brings it to life.
With your involvement and your empathic powers, you participate in that wonderful painted world.
It’s a miracle.”- Wayne Thiebaud,
‘Wayne Thiebaud and Michael Krasny | CCA Gala 2019 | full interview’ (2:16 - 3:03)
As a creator of art, a teacher of art, and an admirer of art, it’s addicting. My love for art now, is even more than when I started as a little kid drawing pictures of batman and robin. It’s one of the most exciting, frustrating, things in life. It takes a ridiculous amount of time, knowledge, and effort to get any good at it, and even then you’re always questioning your abilities, but there really is magic to it. There are few feelings as wonderful as putting in days, weeks, months, or years of work into a piece of art, and watching it come to fruition through it’s completion.
But as magical as the act of creating art itself is, the relationships I’ve been fortunate to build with my collectors, mentors, students, family, friends, and peers through it over the years is even better.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_TNik7E6p0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr68jLXmq4M
http://www.impressionism.org/teachimpress/browse/aboutimpress.htm