Painting as a fine art is most satisfactorily done in oil on canvass, depicting a recognizable subject employed as motif only and embellished by the esthetic distance of a talented artist (esthetic distance is the difference between a painter”s subject and his or her artistic rendition of it.) Art, very broadly and as a created object, is anything made intentionally and for a purpose by an animal or animals including man. Very narrowly, art (i.e., fine art) is anything created by man solely for its beauty.
The recognizability of the object painted, in addition to being the sole purpose of the painting, can add emotional significance, hence value, to a painting. The nonrepresentative painting (a painting of nothing one could recognize,) considered credible art by some, can best be validated as a learning instrument, useful for teaching students the best way of handling such matters as balance, form, space, light and color. Other innovations such as those created by the artist”s standing back and throwing paint at the canvass defy comment.
A concise precis of what a painting is supposed to do is based squarely on the example prescribed by oil on canvas, showing not what must be guessed at, but what can be shown simply and exactly in charming arrangement, color and implied meaning. And every work by a separate artist is sufficiently unique to meet the need for novelty. I propound the wide domain of oil on canvass encompasses all painted arts.
Dean Sparks, Lucerne
