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Rereading this healthy discussion, I very much appreciate the last few posts, amplifying and clarifying some of my comments. Bravo, Tom, for hitting the nail on the head, as far as I'm concerned, on what lies at the core of this whole exchange. Carl, your comment on Zen as a discipline applicable to many approaches is right on the money. I used Zen as a shorthand symbol to make a point. Some posts have read my words somewhat narrowly, and that's okay. Maybe it's my pedantic-sounding tone, but then the burden is on me.
The last thing I mean to do is to set up one style or approach as a paragon and put others down. I equally love too large a range of styles, periods, and personal solutions to our visual and other insights as artists to do that. Also, nothing is farther from my mind than to favor sloppy technique over rigorous pursuit of accuracy.
I personally have grown from many different approaches, often seemingly contradictory. I am always ready, after forty-odd years of experience as a professional artist, to challenge and discard elements of my technique or my thought which I feel might hold me back. This often creates problems, and the 'retooling' I've done in the past three or four years has cost me dearly, but I feel it will all be worth it.
I do encounter a great deal of smugness, even among some I consider very fine artists. I suppose in a way I'm rallying against that, and supporting people whose work -regardless of style and approach- shows- again, to subjective me- a dynamic, ever-growing attitude. Of course we only see snapshots of individual development, including our own. Painters who bore me today might delight me tomorrow, either because they've grown or because I will have grown, hopefully both.
Speaking of Bouguereau, he alternately bores me and delights me, often on the same viewing. So what else is new? I did say we can learn a lot even from people who bore us, right? Heaven knows we can learn transatlanticloads from good old Adolphe William (and please don't forget our own Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau, his wife, who, wow, REALLY learned from him)!
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