Is Painting Dead?
 

Thought I'd share something I found while thumbing through my old daily art journals...

May 4, 1995

Lately this whole Modernist crap has been getting on my nerves. They say painting is dead. I have to disagree. I think they

Gene,

I agree, but I don't think we will have much of a revolution until we start training people to draw at an early age as they should be. Imagine if every child were skilled at drawing by the time they got out of grade school - we would have an art revolution then! People would know the difference between good and bad art because they knew how to do it!

Teaching to draw or not
 

Well Lon, I can

Michael,

In my view, the present lot of professors and art schools are inadequate to train anybody. Few ever became artists by taking a single art class at a school. If, however, we start training all our children in the primary fundamentals of fine art at an early age, they may not even need any "degree" to succeed in art. But I am not even talking about necessarily becoming professional. I am talking about teaching every child to draw, whether they become professional or not. If children have an instinctive ability to draw, as I believe we all do, we owe it to them to help them learn. Let them decide whether they want to make a living at it or not.

Just a question: what IS good drawing? Is it that obvious?

A Twist on Drawing
 

Good drawing isn't obvious at all. If something's obvious, then I would say it's bad drawing.

Oh Pooh
 

As the author of Pooh, A. A. Milne said, "some do and some don't."

OK, I agree, good drawing isn't obvious. So what IS it? How do you decide if it's good drawing? (Or good painting.....and so on).

If you are a photorealist, that statement would apply, Marvin. I am not an expert on the old masters, but can you tell me which of them was a "photorealist" in their drawing technique? (Oh, I know there were no photos.)

Bad drawing is obvious even to those who do not draw. And if you are of the folks who say there is no good or bad, try teaching a class that way. Your students will know better.

Obvious or Oblivious?
 

I guess trying to be subtle through innuendo didn