I think it's wrong to say that facture in art depends on some overtly visible and agitated surface treatment. There is as much facture in the most glass-smooth Ingres portrait as in the clumpiest Lucien Freud portrait. And the argument that declares handiwork over machine work is spurious on the face if it since what mode of making is lacking some "machine" or tool? Tools are extensions of the hands and machines are extensions of such tools. Where does gradual change in degree become radical change in kind? Where one's weak eyes loose the ability to discern marks? Or when a prosthetic device enables -- a better lens or even a microscope -- takes one to the absolute limit of observable evidence? Absurd? No. Such devices are standard equipment, together with even more exacting tools such as x-ray, in any serious art conservation laboratory and they are all crucial to the examination of facture.
The interesting and salient question is, How does facture in a particular artwork affect response to that work? By extension, we can intelligently ask, How does an art era or culturally defined group of artwork symbolize values through facture? Most certainly, the question is not the presence or absence of facture in art objects, but facture of what sort. ________________________________ From: armando baeza <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Cc: armando baeza <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, September 28, 2009 10:58:44 PM Subject: Re: Facture The same applies to to photorealist sculpture, now so prevalent, Also not hand made. From photo to computer manufacturing, and into the galleries. mando On Sep 28, 2009, at 7:40 PM, [email protected] wrote: > The more I think about it the more I reach the conclusion that facture > is more a cultural sign than a sign of artistic impulse. One of the main > reasons photorealists were reviled was that their facture resembled a > photograph-was not handmade, unlike the Abstract Expressionists. > Kate Sullivan
