CompuServe Messages

Gayle, >> ask our dealer… ;-0 Is he the Pooh with a Ponytail by the name of Paul? <BG> >> I always like Monet – but I sure was sick of haystacks… << >> Here's an incediary comment… << Actually I thought you might have taken the "Brave Guy" part of my message as incendiary. <g> I'm glad you didn't. Shows you know me well enough. 🙂 I guess Bears understand each other. Which makes sense, otherwise they wouldn't procreate. (now how's that for provocative?) <G> >> I always like Monet – but I sure was sick of haystacks… << I'm thinking that must have been was a Dutch painter but his name escapes me for the moment. I think it might have been Bosch but I confuse him with the guy that does the demonic scenes. I don't care for haystacks either. Monet may have done them as well but I have a large volume of his works and no haystacks so I'm assuming you must have seen the other one who was I believe one of the Dutch Masters. A precursor to the Impressionists. Growing up I was strongly discouraged from the arts, so I'd go and hang out at little galleries in Sausalito and the Cannery etc. I learned alot about "contemporary" artists, who made a good living at it. So I don't find your comment "he'd be out of business" – incendiary, in the least, rather I find it disheartening and profound. The trash that was vogue for the time, typically seagulls over the bay or "endangered species" which in itself is not a bad topic, but like seagulls very gimmicky, was produced with an appauling production style method. One artist I spoke with confessed he could do at least six a day all variations on a simple theme. That's not art. <G> And I'm not going to claim I do art either, although I hope it does have some artistic merit. I'll think about your comment more but I'd have to agree that Monet might be in trouble today if he couldn't produce works fast enough. However it does seem to me that "artistic genius" would adapt to the times. No proof of course and there are plenty of examples of talented people who for one reason or another got passed over, because of the times, opportunity or some other obscure reason. So notoriety and acclaim are as much a function of the circumstances as the talent which one brings to the subject. Plenty of examples of fairly untalented people making it big as well. <g> Andy Warhol comes to mind, although he certainly had a talent for self promotion, much of which came from coddling the already famous. <G> Da Vinci was undoubtebly a true genius for all time. He would have done well regardless, unless of course the arts where banned or people felt threatened by his enormous amount of talent… which has happened periodically. That's where I keep my sights and it keeps me fairly humble if not frustrated. 🙂 Two other favorites are Degas and Vermeer. Vermeer is a very interesting painter not only for his work but for the technique which he is believed to have used. Some suspect that his studio was actually like the inside of a pin-hole camera, which would recieve a reversed image projected into his studio from an adjoining room. His paintings would then have had to have been created upside down, although it is quite possible that there was a lens in the wall which reveresed the image. Although there is no evidence to suggest that this done. The technology was available, but was probably not incorporated. Vermeers works were very photorealistic and of course the technique appeals the techno/artist in me. Anyway, please excuse my indulgence in this topic, periodically I have to remind my self what its all about, as in this medium we seem so far removed from it all. A friend of mine several years ago gave up animation and went back to oil painting as a hobby, though he was a professional animator at the time. He said he liked and needed the tactile immediacy of oils and CG was too much of a compromise. His disturbing comments run through my thoughts from time to time… I'd be most interested to hear your perspective on this if you have any feelings about it one way or another. For me this is my medium, though I vacilate in frustration between paint and animation. I can emphathize with the enthusiasm that people are expressing for meshpaint as I think indirectly its all part of the same need to have more direct contact, though personally I feel that I would be frustrated with it as well. This is no slight on meshpaint either, but more the fact that the tools with which we already have to paint, which are quite extensive, all have the same limitation; indirect accessibility. I'm glad someone is doing it but with 6 + paint packages already, I think I know what the problem is. <G> Someone recently mentioned VR goggles and gloves for modeling… Now I find that idea rather sexy, though realistically it all comes back to the same thing. The closer we get to simulating reality, the more apparent the gap becomes. I found the scene in Lawn Mower man with the two bodies intertwining the grand paradox as a result. On a certain level we want to be able to meld together, which is the appeal of the scene, but we can no more meld together than we can meld with our canvas. The closest we can get is through a sense of touch and resistance. John