Wednesday, November 22, 2017

What Painting Is


Yesterday afternoon I also did a second painting of the mountains from the top of Sheep Hill: this one a 9x12 oil on a linen sheet.  As I placed and moved the paint around on the linen surface, I thought of the book that I've started to re-read,  What Painting Is by James Elkins.   He writes, "Paint is a cast made of the painter's movements, a portrait of the painter's body and thoughts.  The muddy moods of oil paints are the painter's muddy humors, and its brilliant transformation are the painter's unexpected discoveries.  Painting is an unspoken and largely uncognized dialogue, where paint speaks silently in masses and colors and the artist responds in moods."

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