For Art's Sake

I applaud Steve Sack's movement to showcase a new art medium in the world today. Art in any form is truly an expression of who we are as citizens of the planet...yes, even techno art. It is my understanding that this art form is really catching on in places around the world. I have seen pictures of buildings literally wrapped in new media art.

While I understand that markmcb's article is not about Van Gogh per se, I want to stay with Vincent to make a point. (hopefully)

The reason that art on computer screens will never take the place of the oil paintings created on canvas by the grand masters, and those who aspire to them, is found in the artwork of Van Gogh himself.

I went to the exhibition, Van Gogh's Van Goghs, several years ago in D.C. AS I entered the first room where his paintings were hung, I felt my senses reel. It became immediately apparent to me that Van Gogh's ambition to make pictures that would "touch" those around him had been realized, with those who had never actually met him. He wrote to his brother once that he wanted to transmit "feeling" to his contemporaries. It struck me then, standing in the midst of his short life's work, that not only did we, so far removed from him, come to know and love Vincent through his paintings; but they were expressions of his private experience. He shared his history with us through his art. This, after all, is what made him the extraordinary legend that he is today. He left us a record of lucid self-examination - as both painter and human being.

Some of the paintings in the exhibit were so textured and thick with oil paint, that they looked like stucco. I remember reading that some paintings took months to dry. I just don't think that a computer screen - flat, cold, unattached - pixels not withstanding, could ever take the place of the vibrant canvas of an artist.

The last painting that I saw leaving the exhibit was the last painting that Vincent did. Wheatfield with Crows hung in all its ocher and cobalt glory. It spoke of all the lonliness, desperation, and illness that Vincent endured over a lifetime of striving. The crows flew at the onlooker in a wave of madness. Van Gogh's final statement.

Can we really expect to have an emotional tie with bitforms? Yes, the colors and arrangements can be compelling, but for my money, I don't want to have to get up out of bed on a January night to unplug the art.

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