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July 24, 2005
A mystery
The trick and the reality. Painting is a trick: depicting something in paint, making a copy of something, deceiving the eye. But it is also reality: a painting exists in its own right, it is a real object. It is a real thing containing an unreal thing. Although the paint, the brush strokes and the surface are real, the notion that they carry is implied. The subtle arrangement of colours on the surface leads people to imagine it is something other than paint on panel.
Some people, like Chuck Close, take this to extremes in photo-realism. But then they are recreating a photograph in paint not the real thing [although a photograph is clearly a real object in itself - we could get stuck here]. Sculptors can perhaps get closest to reality with three dimensional models and Ron Mueck gets even closer using resin, silicon and real hair. And as early as 1913 Marcel Duchamp exhibited reality as art when he placed a real bicycle wheel on a real stool. [And many have copied him ever since.]
But painting is still a mystery, why does a good painting hold a fascination over and above the mere representation of something? I feel it’s all to do with the intention of the artist.
Posted by john at July 24, 2005 08:43 PM
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