windows and mirrors -- painting tech

Glass has a flat surface that can be seen through, and glass with silver backing accurately reflects anything in front of it. Ideally it makes no comment, doesn’t have its own point of view, and yields nothing new. Paintings provide a different sort of information from the same flatness, both seen through to the subject and reflecting back on the viewer, a two way experience. The artist chooses a visual vocabulary like the printer chooses a font, aiming for maximum clarity and openness to a particular audience, even if its form is opaque to everyone else.

There are qualities of visual experience that can’t be directly addressed with language, and so a kind of poetry is employed, a free-form, free-association style used in art commentaries on all levels, all in an attempt to serve as abstract approximation of visual art’s potency. Not going to try that here. Will suggest a visit to an art museum, pick a large city for best results. Find a painting you find visually appealing, and spend some time looking. You’re in luck because the lo-cal steady diet of digital fast food you’ve been feeding your brain has left a hunger, a resident longing for the kind of direct human one-to-one interaction authentic art provides. 

A word of caution for those seeking shortcuts. Original art is beguiling for the very qualities reproductions leave out, and the original Hopper has depth and meaning the poster, or the coffee table book, does not. His paintings, many paintings, are also reflections, not of the face you see when brushing your teeth, but revealing of thoughts and feelings you may not have recognized in yourself until now -- what it’s for. You’ll have to do your homework, can’t phone it in. Even if you believe every word I'm saying, you’ll find time with art will allow you to enter a room you may not have been in before, where words don’t seem so important and arguments don’t matter -- worth a try.

Stand in front of your chosen painting and watch while the intention and attitude of the artist rise to the surface -- can you feel the breeze in your face, smell the sea air, hear a dog bark in the distance? Do you feel a presence that spills out of the frame and revives memories, renews vision, and makes you feel good for no particular reason? Now that you’re a believer, go back to your hometown and find an affordable painting that does some of it, and take it home. Let it sink in and find yourself in it.