In a message dated 9/29/09 11:25:51 AM, [email protected] writes:
> 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.
>
I am afraid I thought this was understood.
> 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.
>
I think what Mando was getting at is that computered generated sculture
requires no effort or judgment on the part of the user of the machine.
>
> 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.
>
I think the two questions should be reversed-that the values are symbolized
through facture which
allows the response to the work. If the society admires fine craftsmanship
then the society will respond to work with a controlled facture. If the
society assumes that all craft is the product of machines then the society
will disdain work with a controlled facture as inferior copies of machine
production.
On another note-it is possible that part of the reason Kincaid is so
reviled(aside from his subjects,sentiment etc) is that he is debasing the
facture of the Impressionists.
Kate Sullivan
