If an artist follows her authentic voice, then she is certain to generate an unexpected effect or two—unexpected certainly by others, but often even by herself. We can observe that feature and conclude that the artist is incompetent and that she did not know what she was doing, because we know what works and we know that she did not follow the rules. Or we can ask the question, of her or of ourselves, “Why did she do that?” I think this is the most important question that we can ask of an artist because it acknowledges the artist’s control over and responsibility for her work. And it indicates our own interest and involvement.
| Art school juries follow an almost indistinguishable practice, but with this one most important distinction: the art school jury is too often seeking to fault the student, who is expected to accept the question as a correctly negative judgment or to come up with a good story. This is called defending the piece. Need I say more? I advocate asking the question as a means of greater understanding. |  Dry Canoes. Is there anything unexpected or disturbing here? What question might you ask about this painting? Can you imagine a satisfactory answer? |
Art criticism is rife with examples of superior critics accepting the shortcomings of artists as manifestations of their charm rather than unnoticed sophistication.
Poor Vincent! Today he is loved and admired by unthinking romantics. It is popular to believe that he painted the way that he did because he was such a beautiful character and that he could not really help himself. Those sinuous parallel brush strokes appear to have been made by a man who could not figure out what else to do, but at least he had gorgeous colors and curvilinear shapes. It doesn't occur to us to ask on any meaningful level, “What, Vincent, were you trying to do? Why did you paint that way?”
Do you suppose viewer comments bothered Van Gogh, especially from those who had no idea what he was really doing?
Poor Vincent! Today he is loved and admired by unthinking romantics. It is popular to believe that he painted the way that he did because he was such a beautiful character and that he could not really help himself. Those sinuous parallel brush strokes appear to have been made by a man who could not figure out what else to do, but at least he had gorgeous colors and curvilinear shapes. It doesn't occur to us to ask on any meaningful level, “What, Vincent, were you trying to do? Why did you paint that way?”
Do you suppose viewer comments bothered Van Gogh, especially from those who had no idea what he was really doing?
The Yellow Painter. This painting was faulted for the post being represented in correct perspective. How might you have answered a question about that?
Van Gogh and many other painters of his time were students of The Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colors and their Applications to the Arts (1839) by the famed French chemist M.E. Chevreul. Chevreul had blended colors by winding threads across a card in alternating hues. He discovered that when similar colors are alternated in this way, a brilliance resulted that could not be achieved by either of the colors alone.
Vincent's intention, then, was to sacrifice a solid color or a smoothly gradated color for a more brilliant effect by alternating two similar colors.
By assuming that Vincent did not know any better, we have failed to learn of a major component of his mission.
When we walk into a museum and are faced with a large canvas painted with a single bright color we may react to the work of Ellsworth Kelly by assuming that he was just another minimalist, or that he was reacting against representational art or traditional art in some petulant way. But Ellsworth Kelly was one of a group of soldiers who, in World War II, created highly representational mock-ups of tanks, airplanes, and other military equipment in order to fool German aerial reconnaissance. His drawings of flowers are gorgeous, he was certainly capable of making thoroughly convincing representational art.
We may not be able to completely understand the relationship between his military career and his artistic career, but knowing just that simple fact about Kelly adds another dimension to the question of his later choice to reject illusionalism. He was far from inept at it. I do not want to oversimplify and suggest that Kelly was merely reacting against the war. He was operating on a much higher level of competence and sophistication in his artistic decisions than simple knee-jerk reaction.
Regarding my own work I hope to hear not the vaguely judgmental comment, “That shouldn't work but strangely it does,” but instead the question, “Why did you do that?” to which I would hope to respond with an enlightened response. I, like most other artists, am not to be defined by my incompetencies.
Vincent's intention, then, was to sacrifice a solid color or a smoothly gradated color for a more brilliant effect by alternating two similar colors.
By assuming that Vincent did not know any better, we have failed to learn of a major component of his mission.
When we walk into a museum and are faced with a large canvas painted with a single bright color we may react to the work of Ellsworth Kelly by assuming that he was just another minimalist, or that he was reacting against representational art or traditional art in some petulant way. But Ellsworth Kelly was one of a group of soldiers who, in World War II, created highly representational mock-ups of tanks, airplanes, and other military equipment in order to fool German aerial reconnaissance. His drawings of flowers are gorgeous, he was certainly capable of making thoroughly convincing representational art.
We may not be able to completely understand the relationship between his military career and his artistic career, but knowing just that simple fact about Kelly adds another dimension to the question of his later choice to reject illusionalism. He was far from inept at it. I do not want to oversimplify and suggest that Kelly was merely reacting against the war. He was operating on a much higher level of competence and sophistication in his artistic decisions than simple knee-jerk reaction.
Regarding my own work I hope to hear not the vaguely judgmental comment, “That shouldn't work but strangely it does,” but instead the question, “Why did you do that?” to which I would hope to respond with an enlightened response. I, like most other artists, am not to be defined by my incompetencies.
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