Second installment......not bored I trust!

So into the next part.....

No matter how hard we try to humanize animals a painting is a painting only if it is done by a human. We humans conduct our lives with a high emotional content. The elephant and our other fellow mammals may but don’t know how to deliver it by way of drawing and painting..



So let’s redefine, for our purposes, a painting as a mark or assembly of marks on a surface executed by a human. And let’s call the human who executed the process an artist or painter.

That’s pretty close except for the artist/ painter part. I would prefer to separate the artist from the painter by way of consideration or compensation. The painter is the executor without consideration while the artist is the painter with consideration. In other words there is an implied professional dimension when the ‘mark’ generates consideration.



So to me it’s acceptable to describe someone who applies marks to a surface for consideration as an artist. Broadly,that artist may be otherwise known as a sign writer, an architect, designer, decorator and so on and is generally described specifically as this, within our present society, leaving our ‘artist’ as someone who connects at a different level and in a different way.



So ‘our artist’ is someone who applies a mark or an assembly of marks to a surface with a message. He’s a communicator in other words. Whether the onlooker to the assembly responds will depend on his emotional bank of experiences and disposition. He may respond in a positive or a negative way or with combination of both. The disposition of the viewer will initiate the interest. The energy of the painting will affect the level of his response. If it is generally positive it means he likes the work. Likewise if his general reaction is negative he will not like what he sees. In either case the witness may then project his disposition by sitting and admiring the work or walking away unimpressed. If the work is for sale the admirer may purchase it while his counterpart may express his disaffection by word of mouth or by walking on to some other assembly that presents a more positive connection opportunity. Either way the disposition of the viewer does not change the fact that the executor of the mark with a message is a painter or an artist. In his opinion he may be neither, either or both.



Different marks make different paintings make different connections…

So marks then have a capacity to transmit a message and thereby solicit an emotional response. Let’s analyze the simplest of marks for these properties as a precursor to entering the complex world of understanding an assembly of marks and then the very complicated process of generating such an assembly.



Lets reiterate- a work of art is an assembly of marks with meaning. During the process of constructing a painting we make small and large marks; we make marks with different colors and different values or tone. We make marks with varying texture and place marks pointing in different directions. Sometimes they may become lines. Any one or combinations of these properties will affect the mood of the work by summoning associations in us.



More shortly.......hope u like all this....