Thoughts on Painting In The Modern Age

Progress Photo of A Figurative painting.
Done last year, 2020
Personally, I like doing this sort of project.  Changing directions can yield some nice developments in technique, and artistic vision.  

This painting feels sort of redundant.  

Photography can capture this composition in more detail and will be much closer to how we see things. 

Hats off to super realists.  They continue to demonstrate the artist painter's ability to match the camera.  That is not a small accomplishment.

But, a photographer can finish a project in days, if not hours.  And the digital image has an amazing potential for mass production of images.  Of course, I used a camera to document a painting in its early stages.

The mechanization of art started long before Warhol made a career of pointing it out.  In some ways, it started in the Renaissance.  The studios of those times were more workshop than what we consider an art studio these days.  Of course, painting occupied a space similar to social media back then.  A single person studio might not have been able to keep up with demand. 

Today, Art has the potential to reach more people than the Renaissance artist ever dreamed could exist.  

What is Painting's standing these days?  

I'm still digging through the mountain of images and talent on the net.  Still reading historians and people who know more about the subject.

Painting hang in homes these days; but, more often, they are seen on phones, tablets, and all sorts of screens.  A public gallery of sorts, where people who cannot spare the money for an original go to see art. 

So, so it seems that painting still serves the educational role that religious organizations and government use so well - confirmation and propaganda.  

Do paintings entertain?  The painting process videos on instagram, you tube, vine, etc. seem to be entertaining, if with a short shelf life.  Gallery shows are still popular events.

The wealthy still collect major works. Or, commision pieces to support artists.  I am not really sure why some wealthy people collect and commision art.  From what I've seen, the  collections of individuals seem to be about a love of art.  Corporations see collections as investments.  

Oh, commissioning architectural projects, well that is a bid for immortality.  Remember the Pharaohs?  It kinda works.

I don't think much has really changed, except the venues and the scale of the audience.

The monetary value of art is still whatever a person is willing to pay.  Which is why mass production lowers the monetary value of most art.  Someone is always willing to sell for less.  This is probably more important to the artist trying to make a living.