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I have included a sampling of the
paintings that I have done over the past few years for you to see. I hope
that you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed painting them. I
really can't recall a time when I didn't draw and paint. The photo above
was taken when I was in fifth grade. I had gotten an oil painting set
for Christmas, and was attempting to paint a portrait of Red Cloud. I
painted another one of him called Twilight
of a Titan a few years ago, a little better, I
hope. I have spent most of my adult
years learning to paint people.
Examples of my efforts are seen in paintings such as Southern
Gentleman , The Virtuoso, Purple Heart, and Apartment on Esplanade Perhaps
you can tell that I have been very heavily influenced by the works of
Caravaggio and Vermeer. It was Caravaggio who showed us how powerful
a painting can be when strong lights are played against strong darks.
This is where even the great Rembrandt got the idea. Caravaggio's Calling of St. Matthew is one of the
most powerful paintings ever painted. And that's the right word,
"power!" A painting can have the power of a novel, a song, or a
motion picture, if executed in the right manner. From the first time
that I saw Vermeer's Girl in a Red Hat, I have wished that
I could paint something with that kind of look and emotion. I may
never succeed, but I won't stop trying.
My efforts have been designed to make art that is as good as I am capable of
making. Too many so-called "artists" have spent their lives making
junk that is passed off as art. Just because someone has splashed some
paint on a piece of canvas doesn't mean that it is good art, or even art at
all. A found object may indeed be interesting, but it isn't art.
It is just an interesting object.
A work of art is something produced by a person with the intent of making
something that is beautiful, or inspirational, or thought-provoking.
It doesn't have to look like a photograph at all. Just as a musical composer
is free to write music devoid of lyrics, a visual artist is free to create a
painting or sculpture devoid of subject matter. This doesn't mean,
however, that any sound is music, or that any image or object is art.
A pile of trash is not art. I don't care how well-intentioned the
displayer of the trash seems to be, or how many museums are willing to
display it. It is not art. A urinal is not art, despite what the
admirers of Duchamp may say. Even though it has calories in it,
road-kill is not food. It is garbage. In the same way, a piece
of felt hanging on the wall of a museum is not art. It is a waste of a
piece of felt. It is displayed by people who have neither the ability
nor the drive to actually learn to paint or sculpt. It is a fake kind of
instant art, requiring neither skill nor talent. In this world of
backwards thinking, many people have been duped into believing that the work
of Klee, Duchamp, Kandinsky, et. al., is on a par or even superior to the
great works by Michelangelo and Rembrandt. So if you are believing
that paint spilled on a canvas is art, perhaps we can get together sometime
and talk about a bridge over the Hudson River that I have for sale.
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