Motivation to Paint - Impressionism

Bamboo in the Wind - Wu Chen

Painting has a great many attributes over photography. For one, a painter constructs every single line, and blends every colour, hence every detail of the final image has been filtered through the artist’s mind. This filtering allows the painter to exert great control over the final product. Admittedly, sometimes artists don’t use the filtering power that they have available to them. They paint exactly what they see, and the end image might as well be photograph. However, even though such a painting may lack individuality, its creation has not been a complete waste of time, as the creation has allowed the artist to embark on a journey of appreciation. Every single line, and colour, has been noticed, and flowed through the artist. Although the end product is about as interesting to others as someone else’s holiday photos, to the artist, the end product may forever remind them of the joy it was to create.

The intimacy of the creation may tempt some artists to impart some of their own feelings onto the final product. Colours maybe substituted, and new images added. The image may also be refined by cutting out all the distractions to leave the essence of the intrigue. This can make the painting more beautiful, or more interesting, than the subject that was painted. Wu Chen's Bamboo in the Wind is typical of traditional Chinese ink paintings. Although many people would consider bamboo to be boring to look at, the painting captures the beauty of it to make it interesting. As artists can identify the beauty in things, they start to see beauty everywhere, and they can in turn show that beauty to others. This is expressed in the Chinese proverb:

"First I saw the mountains in the painting; then I saw the painting in the mountains."

Blue Nude – Picasso

In western art, Pablo Picasso was also a master at the process of refinement. In Picasso’s words: “Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.”

In the Blue Nude, Picasso paints a naked woman in a scene that is devoid of sexual arousal. Picasso strips a woman of almost all her shape and colour to leave just a black outline. The confused colours of the background become her form. With the subtle undertones of blue, there is a feeling of coldness to compliment the unsexual outlines.

Blue Nude - Matisse

In Matisse’s Blue Nude, an unsexual nude is also stripped of colour and form to leave the essence of a scene. The lady’s legs are crossed in an unappealing position, and to complete the depersonalisation, she lacks a face, or hands. All that is left is an outline and the colour blue.

Red Room (Oil on canvas)

In the Red Room, I also depicted the feeling of an unsexual nude. The model is blue,with form from a white overlay. The background is flooded with red - a colour of heat and passion. The sexual energy is external to the subject matter so as to give a sense of anticipation, but sexual disconnection.

The Blue Room (Oil on canvas)

In the Blue Room, although the subject is not blue, the world around him is, and the world that composes him, is.

Judging Art

The Role of the Critic

The Role of the Artist

Skills versus Originality

Unappreciated genius

Government Funding for Art

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