Form: Quote Commentary

photos_and_videos/TimelinePhotos_kg5QueHwVw/87378834_215150106549817_3976877044486111232_n_215150096549818.jpg photos_and_videos/TimelinePhotos_kg5QueHwVw/85071419_215150166549811_5292836027340161024_n_215150159883145.jpg photos_and_videos/TimelinePhotos_kg5QueHwVw/87631753_215150163216478_1362317283594076160_n_215150149883146.jpg photos_and_videos/TimelinePhotos_kg5QueHwVw/84398877_215150156549812_2816547313999151104_n_215150146549813.jpg photos_and_videos/TimelinePhotos_kg5QueHwVw/87199801_215150099883151_2206140639131729920_n_215150089883152.jpg A LITTLE ART LESSON

These paintings are all variations on the impressionist theme, from the recent postwar period.

Impressionism is a reaction to the development of photography that deprived artists of a primary revenue stream.

Impressionism has remained a durable style because it retains it signal value as unique hand-crafted demonstration of aesthetic skill, while retaining the mythical experience and aesthetic durability of high art, without the excessive realism of illustration – and it can be produced in reasonable periods of time, so that an artist can create enough inventory to support gallery space to sell his work.

The emphasis is on visible brush stroke, color, and these five examples range from realistic to stylistic, and hard to soft images.

We have photoshop now so we are more aware of how to manipulate colors, but when impressionism was invented the technique was an innovation that required a new set of skills.

When I was in school we were often taught to explore this style by the craftsmen who sold their paintings – particularly landscapes – and told not to do so by the conceptual artists who called them ‘bank paintings’ – meaning ‘corporate decoration’. The conceptual art movement was part of the neo-marxist, postmodernist program to undermine the high arts.

I was rather fond of conceptual art at the time, simply because of all the novelty. But during the 80’s and nineties craftsmanship returned to the arts and the high investment ‘editorial’ art slowly disappeared from the scene.