Realism…
Painting: “Aspects of Suburban Life” - Paul Cadmus.
I guess I’m one of those moderns, as Chesterton would say. I love realist art - showing warts and all - he didn’t. From Dale Ahlquist:
“There is no such thing as art for art’s sake. Chesterton says, ‘Philosophy is always present in a work of art.’ And the artistic philosophy that he subscribes to is Romanticism, as opposed to Realism. Now, ‘isms’ are irritating, and usually difficult to keep track of, so we should know when Chesterton uses the term, ‘Realism’ it is not in reference to highly finished representational renderings, which he admires, but to an artistic philosophy that emphasizes the dark and dirty - and detachment from the eternal. Realism claims to be: Life, warts and all. But what Realism really is, is: Warts as life. The realists claim to be holding up the mirror to nature, but then they start believing only the mirror, even after they have broken it.” - Common Sense 101
Fine. It was his birthday yesterday and I’m glad I didn’t give him one of my paintings. (Yes Joe, it would have been the seminary painting.)
May 31st, 2007 at 12:03 am
Years ago I went to an exhibition of Paul Cadmus’ paintings at the Yale Gallery in New Haven. It was realism, alright! Cadmus lived in CT.
May 31st, 2007 at 9:59 am
He was quite the “genre” painter, I know. I’m not a fan of everything he painted, but he was one of the few modern painters who painted in egg tempera, along with Tooker and French. Tooker died a Catholic.