XII. Looking at Paintings
Sunday, November 24, 2002
Compiled over thirteen days, beginning 111302, ending 112602
Let's say this is a painting hanging on a wall. You might
wonder what this represents, or what it is supposed to show, or the meaning
of it, or how to look at it, or how to assess its quality. You might wonder
why you should bother looking at it. You might dimiss it as something anyone
can do, shake your head, and walk away. Or, you might begin by...
Or, you might begin by looking very closely at what is
front of you and: try to see and think about why this thing is hanging on the
wall in front of you; what it is made of; how what you are able to determine
it is made of tells you about the intentions of the person who made it and decisions
s/he made in its making; how does this compare with what you know about painting;
how this compares with other paintings hanging nearby; how this compares with
other paintings of this same person, and if you know of other examples or have
other examples hanging nearby to compare it to...
If you know of other examples or have other examples
hanging nearby to compare it to, and, if you know, how this fits into the genre
are other things to consider. When I look at paintings I tend to walk back and
forth and side to side a lot. I want to see how far the painting sticks out
from the wall, and I'm really interested to know whether the support the painting
is on is commercially made or not. Unfortunately, I don't often get to see enough
the backs of paintings, but it tells me something about a painting and the painter
if the stretcher is home made or not. When one thinks of painting one thinks
of canvas or linen, but the painting could be on a wooden panel, instead. If
it's on canvas or linen...
If it's on canvas or linen then I look closely to see
what grade and weight the fabric is, what color it is, and how it's secured
to the stretcher- is it stapled, nailed, or does wrap around to the back. I
also look at the folds on the corners, and it can really bother me when painters
seem careless with the corners and do a bad fold and tuck so that the four corners
of the canvas have added padding and so aren't really square. Commercially made
canvases, ones that come from the factory all assembled, come in standard sizes
and ratios and can be spotted across the room easily. These tell me that the
painter doesn't think beyond the surface of the painting, that they haven't
thought of the painting as a physical object. Another thing I look for on the
edges...
Another thing I look for on the edges of the canvas is
how soft or hard the edge is. If the edge of the stretcher is straight milled
wood then where the canvas stretches over the from the front to the side forms
a hard, straight line. But if the edge is milled or sanded to a rounded, curved
edge then the edge of the painting has a completely different effect. Also,
typically a stretcher has a bevel which raises the canvas off the surface of
the front of the stretcher so that as one paints there is nothing to press the
canvas against if painting too firmly; what can happen in this case is a kind
of ghost of the stretcher showing on the front of the canvas, a kind of depressed
framing effect. Sometimes painters choose to show that. Something else I look
for on the edges is to see if the painting was painting on the fabric before
stretched; maybe stapled it had been stapled to a wall or laid on a floor for
painting, and then later stretched. This is easy to see and tells you something...
This is easy to see and tells you something about the
painter's method. In rare cases painters will bevel the sides of the stretcher
so that the edges don't show as much, which results in a kind of project of
the front for a kind of hovering plane effect. Look to see if the stretcher
is square. Sometimes incompetence, haste, or cheap materials result in out of
square or torqued stretchers, but I have seen one intentional case, by the painter
Joseph Marioni, where the stretcher
for vertical paintings just barely narrows from top to bottom to adjust for
the distortion natural to our vision as we stand before a painting. By doing
this he corrects our vision and creates the perception of a more squared shape.
It is an illusion, a representation of a squared shape, but not an actual squared
shape. This is a case of an abstract painting re-representing reality, further
challenging what in art is a depiction of reality and what is an abstraction.
I like to walk from side to side...
I like to walk from side to side and back and forth a
lot when looking. I want to see up close and I want to see far away. I want
to look at an angle so that not only do I see light across the surface to the
texture of the paint, but also because a painting, like a window, or a mirror,
or a face, is more than a flat surface. I like to see the shadows cast on the
wall by the stretcher, and I want to feel the changes in my body, and parts
of my body, and the ways my eyes work, as the distance and angle from which
I look change. I like to be able to look from a distance, across a room, even
from another room, if possible, and I I like to be so close that I am almost
inside the painting. I want to move around probably as much as the person who
painted did, although there is no way I could give it the same time. Also, my
own movement can change and be influenced depending on the painting, and there
is a way that a painting, even though it may appears to be a static image, is
in fact, unless it is in totally artifical light, something that changes, something
that exists in time, and looking at it is also a time-based experience. The
more you look, the more you see. I also pay close attention to size and dimensions...
I also pay close attention to size and proportions. First
off, you can roughly begin associating to a horizontal as a landscape, something
wider and taller that fits your side-by-side eyes, and you can begin relating
to a vertical as a figure if it's tall enough. As the proportions become close
to a square those associations become more vague and closer to a window or mirror,
but that depends on size, too. A vertical that's, say, 24h x 20w (5:6 ratio)
is very easy to take as a portrait. The close to a square the shape gets the
more stable and netural it is. This might begin to explain the importance of
the square to much modern and abstract art, which is the need to avoid figure
and landscape references. But a larger canvas of the same proportion, say, 120h
x 100w, is certainly harder to relate to as a body, becoming instead an environment,
a size quite past window. It's quite common to see paintings that are roughly
an arm's width across and the height of a body, say something like 70h x 60w,
maybe 65h x 54w, a size that feels very body-like and is both manageable in
terms of handling it and moving it around, but also of physically being able
to have an almost 1:1 correspondence compositionally between one's body and
the canvas. And this all get quite interesting when you have a group of paintings
to look at and you begin to see some kinds of rules in operation by which an
artist has either conscously or unconsiously chosen to work Another aspect I
look closely at is the surface and edges of the canvas, its weave and texture...
Another aspect I look closely at is the surface and edges
of the canvas, its weave and texture. Is the weave fine and smooth, or are the
threads thicker for a coarser weave? This makes a big difference in the way
paint goes on, and is an interesting problem to consider in terms of scale.
For example, on a small canvas, looked at closely, with a large, heavy-weave
canvas, the weave will really stick out. And the weave also effects the way
paint goes on, and can effect the overall texture of a painting. Spread paint
across a rougher surface and there is less coverage, less paint going into a
deeper weave, whereas a smoother surface results in faster, smoother coverage
(for an unusual example, look at these two paintings on burlap by Joe
Fyfe [1] [2]).
If you pay attention to this over time you'll notice that, very generally speaking,
paintings that are representational or deal in realism have a fine weave, as
they don't want to canvas to interfere with the illusion being painted. I look
to see if the support is canvas, which is a pale yellow and comes in a variety
of weaves, or linen, which typically comes in fewer kinds of weaves and is a
dark greenish brown color. I notice if the the canvas is coated in gesso, a
white chalky ground, and how many coats, or if the paint is going on a raw fabric.
If oil paint is being used the canvas should be coated in rabbit skin glue or
a clear polymer. Paint going on these differently prepared surfaces behaves
differently, and painters are often particular about their surfaces and have
a difficult time with more than a couple of different kinds of surfaces, much
like artists can be very particular about paper, and find that they love a hard,
shiny hot-press paper but can't do anything with a thicker, more porous, absorbing
cold-press paper. I have also recently seen some paintings on polyester and
nylon surfaces that are very smooth and lightweight, and make me think they'd
be very "fast" to work on. In one case the polyester was stretched
not over a wooden frame but a wooden panel so that the backing panel gave the
nylon a solid support. In this the painter had the hard pressure of a panel
plys the coarse enough surface to hold paint. Of course, it's a hold other set
of considerations if one isn't painting on fabric at all, but instead wood or
metal. If the surface is wood, is it: plywood and how thick; a fine-grained
mahogany or other wood veneer surface; masonite, and either front or back; some
kind of pressed board, like MDF;
and are these surfaces raw or prepared? If it's metal, what kind, what color,
how is the surface prepared, how thick, and how is it supported on the wall.
As for paint...
As for paint, well, there are so many kinds, aren't there?
It is amazing to see paintings that have been in existence for six or seven
hundred years. For example, see Cimabue's (Cenni
di Peppi) (1240-1302) Crucifix,
1268-71 Tempera on wood, 64,5 x 53 cm, San Domenico, Arezzo). Tempera is sort
of what like you used to fingerpaint as a child, a water-based, thickly pigmented
paint, except in this case the pigments are of a much higher quality that are
more finely ground, and it's possible the the paint is bound with an egg mixture,
which is very strong. The challenge to this painting's life are the stability
of the wood panel: how it is supported, the glues used to hold it together,
the climate in which the paintings is housed and is free from moisture and pests,
and the binding between the panel and the paint and the ground between the two.
But most people these days don't paint on large wood panels. They paint on cavas,
which is light and easy to handle, less expensive and much more portable, with
paints they've bought, not prepared themselves; a fair amount of the craftsmanship
that Cimabue had to pay attention to can now often be left up to manufacturers.
One can go to an art supply store and spend a small fortune on all the nice
little supplies and all one has to do is paint. But it is this difference that
is very significant to me as a viewer. The less a painter appears to buy pre-made,
and the more s/he takes it upon him/herself to design and craft, the more sympathetic
I am to their work, because them I'm cued into why the painting is a certain
size or dimension as opposed to the standard 24 x 30 inch size made in a factory.
I don't like givens like this in an artwork. This is why I like to look at the
backs of paintings, but also really why, if I'm looking at a show and looking
at the back is impossible, then I pay very close attention to the decisions
the painter is made by looking at all of the materials closely, the surface,
the sides, and the dimensions. In addition, regarding paint...
In addition, regarding paint, there are all kinds of
considerations: what kind of body do you want the paint to have, do you want
thick or thin, how fast or slow do you paint, how to you want paint to behave
when mixing colors, do you want stiff or flowing paint, do you want paint that
spreads and fills or that stands up more and is kind of chunkier, do you want
to glaze one color or another, do you want paint that washes, are you working
horizontally or vertically, what is the surface you're working on, how large
is the painting, what size brushes will you use, and what kind of connotation
do you want your paint to carry (acrylic- easy, clean, plastic, pre-fab, dry;
oil- traditional, more difficult, flesh-like with a strong odor, control over
matte and gloss, a slower feel; enamel- fast, commerical, modern, possibly ironic,
color and surface like a sign)? All of these choices will tell you a lot about
the artist, how they work, what they choose and avoid. And even then, each kind
of paint has lots of qualities...
Say...
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