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Gestural Vs. Tight (Which is Better?) |
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From this post:
In general, doesn't the answer depend on the opinion of someone who matters? (Sometimes this is the patron, sometimes it's the audience and sometimes the artist's intent.) It might not be too difficult to come up with examples of either argument.
My first thought was Whistler's libel suit against Ruskin.
[For those unfamiliar, in the late 1800s upon the sale of a Whistler Nocturne painting which sold for a good amount of money, Ruskin, an art critic, likened the work to "throwing a pot of paint in the face of the public" (that's probably misquoted, I'm not looking it up) because of Whistler's loose brushwork. Whistler sued for libel in court, and the judge asked how long it took to create the work. Whistler said a half a day, the judge asked if he meant to charge whatever large sum of money it was for the time, for a half a day of work, and Whistler replied that what you pay for is his entire lifetime of experience/knowledge.]
So given that, Whistler justifies work that isn't necessarily polished-- something that shows process, structural knowledge, etc., even if that means it's not readily appreciated at face value by all.
I know you're talking about a gallery setting mostly, (or not? Eh.) but this is relevant to me in terms of a production environment and my actual work experience-- money runs out on a project, and then all of a sudden all that matters is knowing which turds to polish and which you can't cut corners on.
But honestly, when asked "raw expression vs. finished tightness" I think the questions are a bit of a red herring. Why does one have to be chosen over the other when they both exist and thrive successfully in the world? One can be more effective over the other based on the purpose of a work. We could compare Whistler's work in the Aesthetic movement against Neo-Classicism in terms of this. Neoclassicism needed the tight, polished rendering because its work was didactic/more interested in teaching a moral; the work is more dependent on the subject. Things like loose paint strokes would be considered too distracting for this purpose. However, Whistler's loose brush strokes invoke something emotive (and hell, in those Nocturne paintings, if he's likening his work to music in that manner he's gunning for emotion), so we're more concerned with his form over content.
And so much time has passed that these aren't the only purposes for either approach, so I can't really abide by an idea that one would be a less valid mode of representation than the other. Like so many things I think it lies in execution. Hints of process can be beautiful and polish can be beautiful. Or ugly. Whatever.
TL/DR: I don't think it has to be a "vs." statement so much as a "when" statement. Both are powerful tools to be able to use, and as with many tools the wielder of them may prefer one over another or just be better at one over another, and it's totally acceptable either way.
(Then there's the whole other aspect to the fact that someone trained is going to be able to see through a lack of polish and understand how structurally strong something unfinished can be (not only in art), and that when a layman has no idea all they can really go on is polish sometimes. Of course there are these situations too.)
Sorry, I can't focus on all aspects of your questions Ultie, attention span is starting to wane~ D:
PS: Shitty artists suck no matter which road they take, but they can only hide it from SOME people when they lean too hard on the polish. But I don't care about them. XD
 Pink · Tue Jan 31, 2012 @ 09:01am · 0 Comments |
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