In the last post we started by looking at something beautiful and ended up by suggesting that beauty may be a trap. A breathtaking view becomes a trap if you think you can –how to say this—trap it. The common word for this is “capturing it.”
“Oh, you captured that perfectly.”
“That is so beautiful; I want to see if I can capture it in my painting.”
People talk about “capturing” all the time. In music, painting, in a novel, a movie. As if art making were some sort of hunting sport: you hunt the beauty down and then—gotcha!–you corral it in a fenced lot. You killed it!
So, art making is a form of execution. If that’s too strong a word, how about strangulation.
In any case, “capturing” results in lifelessness.
We don’t want lifelessness, do we.
The reason that a painting that duplicates a photo would result in lifelessness is that it would make something monumental, i.e. static, out of a fleeting moment. That would be a lie.
So, how can you allow yourself to be inspired by this image without deceiving yourself?
You can allow yourself to be mesmerized by a small passage that does not refer to a recognizable corner of reality. It does not illustrate anything.
Now, that you can paint—or draw! Not as a copyist, not directly, not in detail, but in gesture, in complete self-abandon. If you pivot your mind into that level of fiction, you may be onto something.
Onto what? We can’t predict. Let’s see.
https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2020/12/06/kitsch-101/
All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.
artamaze by Katherine Hilden 
Great post!! Hope you’re OK. I’m hard at work recruiting voters in GA cities. We have to win these 2 races to flip the Senate. What an even bigger mess T is making of our democracy.
Keven
Keven Wilder Cell: 773.636.6289 http://www.kwilderart.com http://www.fairdealcommittee.com instagram.com/kwilderart
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Art does not “set the fractured bone” (Edna St Vincent’s phrase). I do know that overt action is needed at this time in our world. But I lack any political savvy. I did donate to Georgia, btw. Keeping up with the news is extremely stressful these days, so putting together these posts in my head as I rattle around the house in my isolation, I feel that we mustn’t lose touch with that level of consciousness.