[Tom Edgerton]

Mike--

All I can say is "bloody critics!"

As if producing an "arrangement of visual elements" weren't enough to occupy one well into old age. To answer your question, yes the first one is a well-composed piece. Brings to mind Jamie Wyeth's boot-trampled weed, and I don't think many people are debating whether that painting is art or not.

I would submit that the insistence on a "theme" is a literary requirement/ conceit that comes from the mind of a wordsmith, not a visual artist, so isn't it a little presumptuous to assume that wordsmithing makes one an arbiter of who is or isn't an artist?

I'm not saying that one has to be an artist to be a critic, but a good critic at least has a minimum understanding of process. I don't know many visual artists that make up the story first and then a painting to go with it, though some occasionally do. (Illustrator/ authors, but that's another discussion.)

And wouldn't Denys' requirement of "theme" relegate all art that he estimates as good to "mere illustration"--a term that most art critics have made an instant stamp of inferiority? Well, which is it guys? ("Mere illustration" being another phrase that sets my teeth grinding.)