Frank Torres, BA, MSA
Designed by fratorres. 2008 All Rights Reserved
Bronx, New York
757 630 4533
A
rticles
Art related articles on subjects from Paintings-A-Day, Collecting Art, Artist Quotes, Inspiration, Motivation, Plein Air and Others.
A Painting A Day Subject Matter
During the mid 70’s when I was going to college in New York City it was common to see art students roaming around the major museums on any given day. We were all attracted by different aspects of art. I was fascinated by how the masters could transform the most ordinary of subjects into a masterpiece. Subject was secondary to execution in most works of art. A still life by Cézanne displayed the masterful talent of a genius, but so did Picasso’s cubist figures or Paul Klee’s uncomplicated art. My favorite spot was Degas’ area at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. You would walk into this long room full of sculpted bronze ballerinas, all gracefully standing on pedestals creating a corridor. At the end of the corridor you could see another room full of framed art, already magnificent at a distance. The walk through the ballerinas was drama in itself. All your senses were in overload as you stopped and studied each dancer. I remember wanting to run to the next room just to take a peak but Degas’ gracious figures were holding me back. When I got to the portal of Degas’ paintings I was already mesmerized -incapable of putting two logical thoughts together- feeling inspired yet so unskilled as an artist. Degas led to Henry Moore’s reclining sculptures, then the impressionist room full of Turner’s skies, Monet’s ponds, Van Gogh’s sunflowers. Hundreds of paintings from a period of artistic greatness. Hundreds of styles and sizes. Yet all these masters had something in common, proverbial subject matter.
Subject matter has always baffled the beginning artist and even many mature painters and sculptors. During the impressionist era all the way through the 40’s and 50’s, being different was a matter of choice, a risk. Today, being different as an artist is in demand, somewhat expected. Throughout our schools art students are taught to think outside the box. The problem is that they have not yet mastered the box. Truth be told, present-day art students do not even know what the box is. This is why we have art graduates that can’t draw or understand color’s complexities. The lack of good technique is acceptable as long as you create something unique. The current multi-media savvy and digi-obsessive market is open to art that looks like art, art that does have its decorative merit, but when explored in depth the elements of art are not there. Similar to hiding the hands and feet in figurative drawing because you can’t draw hands and feet. Well I rather be in the box if in the box is where you find art of value; done with sweat and intellect, and mostly heart.
I worry that too much emphasis is being put on painting past conflicts and current societal cultural dislikes and not enough emphasis on art as a whole. Van Gogh’s manic-depressive life produced some of the most beautiful still life’s and floral ever painted. As artists, we are intellectual filters to all the dysfunctional attitudes that society exhibits. We must get away from the need to paint exclusively “our” evils and societies’ faults. Too many beautiful things in this world are unexplored by an artistic mind and are great potential subjects for us to paint.
The Painting-A-Day movement, in my opinion, is the closest thing that we have today to artists selecting the most sincere and people-friendly subject matter, with a committed effort to return to the basics. The captivating magic of purposeful brush strokes, thought-out textures, and honest color schemes are elements of most daily painters. The works of art are small oils, acrylics, and watercolors commanding their own well deserved visual presence in the art world. Art that makes you smile, sigh, or perhaps cry and not art that is confrontational, fearful, and repulsive. When you look at an Edward B. Gordon oil, a Karin Jurick’s museum patron, or at Carol Marine's still lifes, you feel a sense of awe. That so much power and attraction can be contained within a small canvas is astonishing to many, myself included. That we can own one of them within hours of being painted is even more amazing. The Painting-A-Day artists such as Duane Keiser, Cathleen Rehfeld, Todd Smith, Manuela Valenti, William Wray, Brenda York, and many others of equal talent and quality bring to us--on a recurring basis--a piece of their daily routine, a fraction of their artistic soul, a glimpse of their mastery.
Is it marketing genius or is it an honest reaching to an emerging group of art patrons? I can attest with certainty that the latter, unquestionably, is true. To all of you that buy art because you love art, because it makes you happy, and because you are a part of that emerging group that prefer an original over a copy; then the Painting-A-Day experience is for you.
Frank Torres
Comments: Email
