Sketch of the final rose from my garden this yearRecently I have been reading Harold Speed's The Practice and Science of Drawing. It is a wonderful book...more about that later when I do a proper review.
But for now, a few quotes from the introduction:
On art education...
"Great things are only done in art when the creative instinct of the artist has a well-organized executive faculty at its disposal." (p.18)
In the past, I have referred to this as: "Always go with your gut. And always educate your gut."
On the difference between reproduction and art...
"The same fact accurately portrayed by a number of artistic intelligences should be different in each case, whereas the same fact accurately expressed by a number of scientific intelligences should be the same." (p.20)
This is an interesting perspective on the debate of photo realism.
On the perspective of an artist...
"The artist is capable of being stimulated to artistic expression by all things seen, no matter what; to him nothing is amiss. Great pictures have been made of beautiful people in beautiful clothes and of squalid people in ugly clothes, of beautiful architectural buildings and the ugly hovels of the poor." (p.22)
I find that "stimulated...by all things seen" a little challenging! I certainly have favorite subjects and dreaded subjects.
On seeing deeply as an artist...
"The commonplace view is not the true, but only the shallow, view of things." (p.22)
This again is interesting in the debate about style and communicating in art...you aren't just painting a pear and pepper, you are creating a view of the pear and the pepper.
It's a wonderful book, lots to think about...you'll be hearing more about it later. :D
4 comments:
Thought-provoking quotes. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Teresa!
Hi Rose, thanks for these. Make you think!
I'm all for photorealism but when your first thought is that its a photo and not a work of art I think, whats the point in painting it if you could have just printed it? There is a lot of photorealistic art that looks so real you want to touch it but it still looks and feels like art. Of course like with all types and forms of art its a personal preference more then anything.
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