Debate: What's happened to figurative art?
I've spent the last few days immersed in a world of oil, gesso and cartone paper, of workshops and apprentices and guilds. I've been writing about the Italian Renaissance, and writing can be a form of time travel. You find yourself, for a moment, in a world when art was a craft; when levels of skill were so mind-boggling that it's easier to take them for granted and concentrate on the meanings and ideas - because to comprehend the technical achievement of a Botticelli or a Leonardo is all but impossible.
There is a profound difference between art rooted in craft, and art that has no interest in it. In this century, art has left craft far behind. A process that began when Marcel Duchamp insisted art should appeal only to the brain is, today, complete. Painters who know how to paint are relics from another world and sculpture no longer seems the right word for the objects artists find or cause to be made.
Is this a tragedy? Yes, it is. But can the clock be turned back? No, it can't. Often, if I write about, say, Constable's portraits I will get inundated with press releases from artists who paint portraits, who feel excluded from the world of the Turner prize and Tate Modern. There are many people in Britain today who would claim their art is based in craft and the study of nature. They look at the conceptual art establishment and feel rage, exclusion, rejection. If a critic says something like I said in my first paragraph, they cheer. But I've got a question for figurative artists: if the greatest art is that of a Michelangelo or a Titian, if what really matters is the truthful picturing of the world with love and craft - why is it you think you measure up?
A work of video art by Hilary Lloyd or a conceptual work by Ryan Gander may not seem to have much to do with the Italian Renaissance. But what has a drily painted, cliched, sub-Maggi Hambling portrait or a limp bronze rabbit got to do with it, either? Most figurative art being made in Britain today is derivative, shallow nonsense. Worse, the skills are not up to the job. For the death of craft is a reality; it is a consequence of the Industrial Revolution. To restore the craftsmanship of Verrocchio you'd have to put young artists into apprenticeships when they were 12 with the greatest artists alive. I wonder if Lucian Freud feels like taking on some live-in pupils. It could be a reality TV show - he'd love that.
Something has been lost from this world. But the fate of art mirrors the fate of industrial society itself. Now we are on the verge of destroying the very nature the great artists painted so well. Art's duty is to tell the truth, and the truth of our time is more likely to be caught by a digital camera than the lost wax process.
- Obtener enlace
- X
- Correo electrónico
- Otras aplicaciones
Comentarios