Hi, all, I'm interested in art history, but am woefully ignorant of art techniques (which I suppose, is like being interested in physics but not knowing math), so I was both fascinated by what John Irving wrote:
<<Her form painting is flat because she hasn't figured out form painting on her own -which is based entirely, well predominately- on color value. Given her impulsive nature, I can't imagine her ever having the patience to master form painting based on value. It's so by the numbers. She's so attatched to the idea of color hues as expressive content and metaphor. It's hard to believe she'd ever give up that "freedom" and start squinting for values. The rules of impressionism work great for sweeping panoramas and vistas, but they don't work for planes that are an inch or so apart. Compliments don't make form in a face. -The area she's improved with masterfully is the chromatic values of the TI paintings. Her use of titanium white to bring the values higher really kills many of the earlier paintings. It's what helps make them so flat. -Thankfully, her sharp eye is seeing how the master's did it: lighter tube colors of the same hue, and intermixing hues to make value changes. Not white. Not black.>> I may have the wrong term, but I had kind of concluded that Joni's style, while reeling from complete abstractiop, through impressionism, to more-or-less realism, was centered on the fauvist idea of the use of color -- just as John said (in different words, of course). As for my ignorance, I don't know what "value" means, what "form painting" is, nor what "flatness" refers to -- does it have to do with perspective, or it more involved with the manner in which she paints? I'm going now to look it up in my art referneces, but i thought I'd ask here also in case anyone else was puzzled, intrigued, etc. warmly, walt
