Meaning of ART-Its definition, some comments Arrived at from trying to answer Qs. First Version.

In the section where I give a list of all the things painting is not, my statement is a half truth. I do believe that none of those things is the true kernel of what painting is about, but at the same time, I do think that on some level at least some of the time, painting does function, as one or more of those, too. While I think pleasure is involved in enjoying a fine painting, the pleasure is not the most important element for the viewer in a work of art. Each successful painting embodies a whole world, and that world's logic. This can be as true in a small still life as it is in a large panorama. The logic and order of the world is implicit in how that painted world is constructed; the kind of space making, the proportion system for figures, or lack of one; the use of color, the method used in developing the space, the size and function of the brushstroke, all have implications for the character of the world we experience in the painting.

Thus each masterwork presents a view of the world which is intense and believable for those minutes which we use to appreciate it. These worlds are by no means all closely related, nor are they all compatible to all viewers. The embarkation for Cythera, Watteau's academy painting, in its second version, in Frederick's country palace museum, at Charlottenburg, near Berlin, is not necessarily wonderful to the same people who feel awe in front of Piero della Francesca's paintings in the church of San Francesco in Arezzo. Two works by artist and teacher, don't necessarily give pleasure to the same people, say the Piero just noted and Signorelli's Apocalypse and the Last Judgment in Orvieto. While we consider them both masterworks, there is sufficient difference between the two constructionally and ideationally to exist as distinct and at different places in the roster of masterworks, and helpful influences kept by any artist.

 We, in our generation, probably for the first time in the history of art can have place for such works as those, and the Watteau, and Berlinghieri's Saint Francis and Scenes from His Life. Even the paintings of the Woman's Mysteries outside Pompei, and the work of Mondrian can share our feelings. All of these are so different one from the other, that the thing they have in common is the excellence and conviction of their work, and the great intensity with which they fulfill their logic pictorially. Let me underline the fact that the character of the construction is a major part of the meaning of any work, and is closely associated with conscious and purposeful ideas of each artist. No artist is a useful parrot who repeats his culture's ideas without conscious control. Great artists define the culture by the  twist which forming takes in their work.

Study of history gives us much more than facts, but it does not give us the hands on feel of a culture at a specific time. We are not compelled to feel what that culture is like unless we are exposed to its masterworks through the personalities of its master painters.. One of the problems, now for art historians, is that their education does not concentrate on this, nor have they been taught how to do it in many different historical periods, as some of them once were.

There is something quirkily wonderful about all the Masters of Siena, starting with Guido. It is certainly not all the same, but there are some internal relationships. The first overwhelming Sienese masterwork seems to me the back of the Maesta by Duccio. Starting with the entry into Jerusalem [for which a town gate of Siena is substituted] an odd, close to home narrative filled with homely details, and metaphoric compositions, based on opposition between spatial oddity [the many breaks in rational space in Jesus; stations], clear spatial definition, metaphoric linear conjunction [the series of edges of curves of the vaulting which end at the top of Judas' head in the painting Judas being paid the 30 pieces of silver.  There is a rhythm in the passage from clear space to clearly broken space, to linear metaphor to another form, and back again. This cannot be found in any other painting, Sienese, Florentine,or other, from that period or any other. This rhythm is that of narrative painting. The irrational spaces usually informing especially Christ's more than rational being, and occasionally the most important actions of those who act as his adversaries, like Pomntius Pilate.  They tend to break down a rational space which has by then been sufficiently established to be expected.

Let me add, just a fragment about another unusual painting. The Burial of Count Orgaz by El Greco in Toledo. El Greco began his life as an uncomplicated painter in the provincial Cretan school, which could also be called "primitive" by comparison to contemporary mannerist work in Italy [the work also looks primitive or like American folk Art, formally]. He then went and studied with the greatest living Venetian master, Tintoretto. Tintoretto was a master of the mannerist school and it is into this school that El Greco is received. Much later on, in Spain, where he was acceptable because of his Venetian training, he paints this strange work with its implications of a rising of the dead soul; into heaven. This is an idea which could have come out of Cretan painting, but here is translated into the language of Tintoretto, which , of course in this context becomes that of El Greco..

It seems to me that all of these artists have very different voices, even the ones closest to each other. What makes their voices count, for us, is not the specific ideology, or forming method, but the conviction and easy translation of each of them into our own experiences through our perceptions. The artist is here to portray a personal, and even a revolutionary vision of the world. It is a logical world, that is, based on its own logic. It is consistent and compelling, and when we believe it, we have entered another one of God's many mansions, one which did not exist before the master in question painted it.

Since I am not cut off in any way from the enjoyment and full experience of so much great art of the past, and the hands of the artists who formed it, I see no reason to construct a transitional figure between it and me, who will justify my position as an artist. I, and all of you, can get into, and enjoy those many artists by appreciating their voices, catching on to their choices for tropes to express their feelings, often enough through their religion, and returning to our own work exhilarated by their examples and the wonder of the worlds they have produced.

It is not really a complicated answer. Simply stated, painting gives an intimate view of  the artist's mind as it deal with issues of importance for him, in his time. These issues may become clear only in a complex panorama, or in small detail of it.  But it is the success of the artist's brush which defines that world, and it is his view, even if the subject was given by the patron who commissioned the work.

Love,
Gabriel