Art and Craft

I know. It's not Friday. Here's this week's tardy Featured Foto.

That's a photo of a Sol LeWitt painting that hangs in New York's Museum of Modern Art. Karen and I were there the other evening for a film (Rome, Open City) by Roberto Rossellini.

Now, when you look at a painting like that one, do you ever find yourself thinking, “well, hell, that doesn’t look too hard—I bet I could paint that...”?

If so, you’re certainly not the first and, undoubtedly, not the last.

What makes us believe that things that look simple are easy to produce? I suppose there’s some assumption chain in our (Western? do Japanese viewers think this about simple things they see?) memosphere (OK, I think I just made that word up, but it’s the collective set of memes we use to understand, and navigate through, the world) that equates expertise with complexity. The logic would go something like this: complex things must have been created by experts; simple things could be created by anybody. It’s sort of the “intelligent design” approach to art. You know, “this is too complex to have arisen from rules guided by chance; it must be the product of a master artist...that thing, on the other hand, could be made by a five year old.”

Logical, after a fashion, but wrong. What was it Picasso said? “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” Oh, and that Leonardo guy had a point of view on the subject as well: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

But we continue to behave as if this were not true. Paintings like LeWitt’s still elicit that head-shaking-wonderment from so many of us, accompanied by that strand of inner dialogue: hell, that don’t look so hard.

Nope. Genius never does.

Have a great weekend.

Comments

[niti bhan]

well said!!! have a great weekend!

[Tom Guarriello]

Thanks, Niti. You too.