The artist and the automation

I had some time before the Bruegel exhibition, so I looked at the two nearby rooms. So I stand in front of Titian's Danae, and my automation turns on uninvited: 'This shadow under the left breast should be deeper... and this forearm is too long... and this hand was clearly painted by an apprentice from a male model..." Shut up, automation, you are interfering with my enjoyment of painting!

(Illustrations: the Vienna version of Danae I was looking at, and Bruegel's wonderful 'The Artist and the Buyer'. Or, in this case, the artist and the automation.

Jon Schindehette writes about standing out

Art director Jon Schindehette wrote this about the current concept and fantasy art scene:

So often when I attend a convention and wade through hundreds of portfolios in a weekend, I am struck by the “sameness” of them all. So many folks have the same look, the same style, the same mark making techniques. It’s almost as if there is this fantasy/sci-fi Photoshop filter running around the internet. < . . . > At the end of a long and tiring con, do you think I remember the one guy that excelled at the predominate style? Maybe. But I can guarantee that I remember the folks that stood out from the crowd – the amazing gouache artist, the stellar water-color artist, the person that was doing something in Photoshop that I had never seen before. Nope, I didn’t really remember anyone that had applied the SFS Filter to their work. They just didn’t stand out.

It's true for any art scene from any age.  Many people copy, but few people dare to invent. For every Rembrandt or Vermeer, there are a thousand Dutch painters who were producing the same run-of-the mill stuff. It's just that we get to see everything that is in vogue today, but to see those Dutch run-of-the-mill products you have to go to third-tier museums that cannot afford Rembrandt. The same will eventually happen to the artists of our times.

The full article link:  http://theartorder.com/2011/08/26/differentiate-or-die/