Perfection

I dunno, TomKitten, my friend seems to imply that overworked art is not as good. I found out that quote came from Voltaire who also said this:



So you have to decide if Good is good enough.

Besides the Greeks, the Navajo, and the homespun quilt-makers, the Japanese Culture also has a Principle of Imperfection... called something like Wabi Sabi. I will go and look it up. Hmmm, got it wrong a bit, it's Shibusa:

Aesthetic Approach to Ecosophical Education


Here's another interesting website:

Zen-Taoist Approach to the Japanese Tea Ceremony

We're on the same basic track as I previously stated, "With a painting, an artist could end up "over painting" and end up with an inferior image to the one they originally intended."

(Or as Mozart said when confronted with the idea his work "had too many notes:"

"There are just as many notes as are necessary."

Actually, any painter saying they purposefully included an imperfection makes about as much sense as a composer deciding to include a flat note in his composition.

Perfection
Certainly one major problem with art is knowing when to stop. When does Good become Better, then the one last touch which should have made it Best prove just that bit too much?

Maybe what that painter (whoever it was) meant was that he (or she) allowed an imperfection to stand... not trying to paint it out. It made me think of one of my favorite books on writing, known to me as Strunk & White The text said something similar, "Omit needless words.... (let) every word tell." I read somewhere that when E.B. White heard Strunk give a lecture, it was so short that he was quickly finished, well before the class time was over. To fill in the gap he just repeated the lecture two more times.

I thought the origin of including a flaw so as not to
insult the Gods began with oriental rugs......

I have Strunk and White -- I wish more posters on A2K would read and use it!

I don't know if trying to speculate why the artist would do this or what his method was will accomplish much. Yes, it is in the tradition of making Persian rugs -- not to offend Allah by purposefully leaving a small flaw in the design. No, it shouldn't be in the imagery of any artist who is honestly trying to complete a painting in its fullest granduer. What is a flaw, anyway. Look at an Ingres painting close up and all you see is a mess of incoherant brush strokes. Stand back and it looks like the figure could move and talk. Should Ingres have put a wart on the face of his cream skinned beauties? The more we discuss this, the more absurd it becomes.

art
I should read what has been presented before saying this but I do not know what is perfection (aside from the definition) in my experience except, perhaps, if we assert that everything is "perfectly" what it is.

art
More than once I have had accidents with paint (imperfections because the results were not intended?) but in my judgement they improved on my originally intended image.

As Dr. Pengloss says in "Candide" -- we live in the best of all possible worlds.

Shepaints... did you scan any of the Stanford lecture? It seemed to imply that the Greek statues, which we tend to think of as perfect, were, in fact, not at all. There were places of perfection and places where they remained rough, at least, according to the lecturer. That would predate any Islamic tradition with oriental rugs... though not a pagan one. I'm so interested in the Navajo having a similar belief, I wish Asherman would come back and say more.

LW -- It is such a small book -- anybody could read it and keep it on their desk, don't you think? One of my very favorite reads and worth going over again and again.

JLNobody -- I think your experience of a "lucky happenstance" may be partly what my friend was meaning, but I think it is hard to be a painter today. Do you do as Gerhard Richter, and try to paint so perfectly that it looks like a photograph... and then, if you will, smear all the paint. Or do you perfectly splash around color like one of the abstracts from Jackson Pollock.

Just for fun, here's an image from one of those websites I posted... it should have a flaw, right?


And now, here's Jackson Pollock's famous abstract. Did he or didn't he?

truth
And I think Dr.Pangloss (aka Liebnitz) was right. It the best of possible (real) worlds because it is the only world (this not true, of course, of hypothetical worlds. But they don't exist).

truth
Piffka, neither. I usually start with a vague aesthetic (not narrative) image, and it generally evolves, each application suggesting others. Eventually images begin to form and I may capitalize on them and try to follow their lead (even with a title in mind). It's all a mix of intention, intuition, serendipity and luck (good and bad).

Abstractions should originate in the deep, seldom explored recesses of the artist's mind. They can be influenced by outside imagery like Elaine DeKooning's later "cave painting" abstractions or Diebenkorn's street, water and beach views. In the end, they are not concerned with "perfection" as it becomes not only non-objective but also non-subjective.

Michaelangelo's David would be considered perfection except some might take exception to the statue's "child bearing hips."

Re: truth


I just love this, JLN... is that a perfect (!) description of life or what???


LightWizard - ... and his neck seems a little thick.

I don't believe the masters of abstract painting are relying on serendipity or luck. It's hard to define "planned accident" but the artists does have a great deal of control over the splashes and drips and certainly have as much control over the gestural brush strokes as a calligrapher (in fact, they owe a lot to calligraphy or any type of "automatic writing.")

Perfection
Actually, I think Shepaints is right. I do seem to remember that the statement was made of oriental rugs. But the principle applies in other arts perfectly well.

With regard to the two paintings Piffka showed us: If we can't find an imperfection is it even there? And if it is there, by whose standards is it judged to be such, anyway? Is something I might define as an imperfection actually done deliberately by the artist as contrast, balance, or emphasis in relation to some other part of the work?

I can define as an imperfection an apparent extra leg on an animal, which is the result of unplanned or poorly executed drawing. But that type of problem aside, who is to say where, if anywhere, the imperfection lies in the stylized picture of birds, or the probably deliberately random splatters of the Pollock?

In the best of all possible worlds and the philosophy contained in a simple, small book entitled "Candide," perfection simply doesn't exist. It's whether someone is so obsessed they actually want to get out their microscope to find the most infinitely tiny flaw. I run into this with the custom framing more than with any of the art.

I wish you could remember who it was who said this, TomK, so we could examine his work.