Some Artistic Myths Eviscerated

This post is by guest author, Stapleton Kearns.  This article has been edited and published with the author's permission.  You should submit an article and share your views as a guest author by clicking here.

Tonight I would like share my ideas about popular sayings about art with which I disagree. I don't mean to imply that you should disagree, but I'd like to examine some ideas that float about our studios unchallenged. Some of which might be doing us more harm than good. Be forewarned these are sacred cows I am about to throw on the grill.

1. Happy accidents.

I don't think I want accidents happening in my work, again you might, I don't.

In fact I think that... Nothing Good gets into a painting by accident.

I can't recall any 19th century texts advising the artist towards the accidental. The "happy accident" idea came into prominence during the 1940's and 50's when watercolor was in its zenith of popularity. The so-called AWS (American Watercolor Society) style emerged. This popular style of loose watercolor was at its best in the hands of Andy Wyeth, but a whole generation of blotters and razor blade scratching tricksters followed. There were so many of those watercolorists doing rusting farm machinery and barn-siding that a whole "look" ruled many of the galleries and shows for a generation. When that stuff went out of style it took almost all the watercolor market with it. Today, there are very few watercolors in the galleries I frequent. That's really too bad, because watercolor is a wonderful medium, and folks like Sargent, Homer and a whole boatload of wily Englishmen like Richard Parkes Bonnington did marvelous things with it.

I want to be as deliberate as I can, I don't want unexpected and unplanned "accidents" happening in my paintings, I want the entire thing to be crafted with intent. If the point of a work of art is self expression , decisions I make are more self expressive than things which happen without my personal intent. I am a somewhat loose painter with visible brushwork and not a super tight "realist" painter, but I want to control what my paintings look like, and not share that control with happenstance.

2. It takes two artists to make a painting, one to paint it and another to stop him before he ruins it.

I work on a painting as long as I continue to make good decisions. A lot of work I see today is, in my estimation, "undercooked", particularly plein air work. I often see pieces I wish were more resolved or more carefully made. Richard Schmid has pointed out that loose is how a painting looks and not how it is made. While he is evidently a one shot painter, that which he chooses to resolve is RIGHT. I am not saying all paintings should be tight as a drum or highly detailed, but I do think many paintings today suffer from being blown out in sloppy haste hoping that some magic will make them excellent, rather than carefully and lovingly created by an informed craftsman who spares neither effort or time. Although time spent on a painting will not necessarily make it good, I intend that none of my paintings be weak because of lack of effort.

I BELIEVE A PAINTING HAS NO REASON TO EXIST OTHER THAN THAT IT BE WELL MADE.

3. Originality is the most important thing in a work of art.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not against originality, but I have seen a whole lot of art that has only that. While working hard to be original, some artists, particularly in some art schools, have avoided learning their craft. I've heard young artists say that they didn't want to learn from those who came before them, because that would damage their originality. For most of them that is a fatal attitude for their artistic development. I think it is a kind of intellectual laziness. Wouldn't it be better to learn everything you can, absorb ideas and methods like a sponge? Then later when you are making your art, you can choose which ideas will be useful in making each particular painting. Possessing academic knowledge, does not force you to use it. I get way too hung up on what the painting actually looks like, so if I don't like what the painting looks like, how "original" it is, means zip to me.

4. Great artists must starve and die in obscurity.

You go starve and die in obscurity, I've got kids to feed. The contempt that young artists and some pedants have for working artists and illustrators who do make a living is misguided and malevolent. Most of the great artists in the museums were financially successful. There are exceptions like Van Gogh, who surely chose obscurity, as his brother was an art dealer. But Monet had five full time gardeners on staff and Picasso made a fortune.

You don't have a problem with the Rolling Stones making a living do you? Hows about Mark Twain, Frank Loyd Wright, Kathryn Hepburn or Cole Porter, should they have starved? They didn't, they were well compensated and made great art just the same.