Does art size matter?
GoGen
How do you feel about the size of the painting?
Does a larger work instantly makes it more valuable in common people's
eyes?
I enjoy making 20x30 cm oil on glass paintings with maximum size of
about 35x50 cm, but I often hear that the paintings are too small,
although they are very detailed and I sometimes spend more time making
my "small" painting then my coleagues do when making much larger one.
Or should I just forget about the quality and go for the size with
less details?
Thank you for your time!
Goran Generalic
-----
"Gallery Josip Generalic" - Croatian Naive Art
http://www.generalic.com
-----
peter nelson
GoGen wrote in message <372032ac...@news.tel.hr>...
>
>How do you feel about the size of the painting?
Larger paintings tend to be viewed from a greater distance.
As a painter I strive for detail and realism. Many of the artists
I admire in this respect work on a much larger scale than what I
find practical in my little studio. It's not at all unusual to go to
a museum and/or be looking through a book and discover that
some piece involving technique I'd like to learn to emulate is
actually huge - 50 by 80 inches or something. At that scale it's
easier to do fine detail which still looks like fine detail when viewed
from a typical viewing distance.
---peter
Andrew Werby
> How do you feel about the size of the painting?
> Does a larger work instantly makes it more valuable in common people's
> eyes?
[Yes. All things being equal, paintings generally sell by the square foot.
This has led many artists to make paintings that are so huge as to be
impossible for anybody but a major museum to display. This not only doesn't
raise, but actually lowers the saleability of the piece, as may be imagined,
but still raises its perceived value, and its asking price.]
> I enjoy making 20x30 cm oil on glass paintings with maximum size of
> about 35x50 cm, but I often hear that the paintings are too small,
> although they are very detailed and I sometimes spend more time making
> my "small" painting then my coleagues do when making much larger one.
[How long you spend making a painting has nothing to do with its value. How
long you spend publicizing yourself (preferably with silly stunts which
attract the attention of the news media) will, however, make it more
valuable in proportioon to the degree that people at large begin to
remember your name.]
>
> Or should I just forget about the quality and go for the size with
> less details?
[No, forget about the quality and the size- get out there and start making
an ass of yourself!]
> Thank you for your time!
[No problem- remember us when you're rich and famous...]
Andrew Werby
UNITED ARTWORKS- Sculpture, Jewelry, and other art stuff
http://unitedartworks.com
http://www.computersculpture.com for 3d design tools
April Showers
>Larger paintings tend to be viewed from a greater distance.
And if you paint on the head of a pin it is common
courtesy to offer the viewer a magnifying lens.
Brian Shapiro
>> the square foot.
Especially for artists who make wall paper / gift wrapping patterns like
Mondrian.
>> How long you spend making a painting has nothing
>> to do with its value. How long you spend publicizing
>> yourself (preferably with silly stunts which attract the
>> attention of the news media) will, however, make it
>> more valuable in proportioon to the degree that
>> people at large begin to remember your name.
So you are admitting that the only value modernists see in art is the
signature of the person who made the painting?
>> forget about the quality and the size- get out there
>> and start making an ass of yourself!
Shouldn't be hard if you imitate Pollock or Rothko.
--Brian Shapiro
Charles Eicher
>
>
>How do you feel about the size of the painting?
>Does a larger work instantly makes it more valuable in common people's
>eyes?
>about 35x50 cm, but I often hear that the paintings are too small,
>although they are very detailed and I sometimes spend more time making
>my "small" painting then my coleagues do when making much larger one.
>
>less details?
I always thought it was much harder to make a really good small painting than a
good large painting. One of the best painters I know works no larger 5x7 inches.
She works REALLY hard on thinly applied transparent effects at this scale. On
the other hand, big scale has a sheer power of its own. I'll never quite forget
a show by Bob Zoell at the ACE Gallery in LA. Zoell made a series of huge
canvases, I mean really HUGE, like 30x100 feet! And they consisted merely of a
large flat color field with two dots about 20 feet across. It was really
powerful work. ACE hosted a lot of shows of large works, since they had one of
the largest spaces in LA (a converted storehouse).
Anyway, even when I work large, I try to make my paintings so that they aren't
intended for viewing just from one viewpoint, you have to make it interesting
when viewed from all distances. When I had a huge studio, I'd stand way back,
medium far, closeup, etc. and make it work at all those distances. I don't have
a very big studio now (nothing more than a normal office-size) so how far away I
can stand really limits how big I can work.
Bryn_Ayers
go...@generalic.com (GoGen) wrote:
>
> How do you feel about the size of the painting?
> Does a larger work instantly makes it more valuable in common people's
> eyes?
Size does not independantly determine the quality of a work. A large
painting that is bad is just a big mistake. To your question the borgoise
don't know...
The impression of size is fleeting without a spiritual connection...
> I enjoy making 20x30 cm oil on glass paintings with maximum size of
> about 35x50 cm, but I often hear that the paintings are too small,
> although they are very detailed and I sometimes spend more time making
> my "small" painting then my coleagues do when making much larger one.
> Or should I just forget about the quality and go for the size with
> less details?
I think we have to consider that art itself can be pollution. Often
the pigments are toxic the binders are plastics, the mediums are greenhouse
gases. If no one want's it what is it?
The art-teacher prejudice for large is the phallic myth of the America's.
Think of Vermeer... Size can be justified if it is of some extreme
value! Otherwise it is something that the conquering army will burn
rather than steal!
> Thank you for your time!
>
> Goran Generalic
>
> -----
> "Gallery Josip Generalic" - Croatian Naive Art
> http://www.generalic.com
Ciao!
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"O senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm and yet will make
Gods by the dozen!" -- Michel de Montaigne (1533-92).
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emat...@tomatoweb.com
go...@generalic.com (GoGen) wrote:
>
> How do you feel about the size of the painting?
> Does a larger work instantly makes it more valuable in common people's
> eyes?
> about 35x50 cm, but I often hear that the paintings are too small,
> although they are very detailed and I sometimes spend more time making
> my "small" painting then my coleagues do when making much larger one.
>
> Or should I just forget about the quality and go for the size with
> less details?
>
>
> Goran Generalic
>
Goran, you should give some thought about this issue of size beyond relative
value and all that. There should be some artistic purpose for electing to
paint large works, other than commercial considerations or musing over what
other's are doing.
The relationship between size and scale is a fascinating artistic problem.
By 'size' I mean the physical dimensions of the work, and by 'scale' I mean
the physical dimensions of the subject of the work of art. It's possible to
have a painting the size of a postage stamp which represents a tremendous
landscape, and a painting the size of a gallery wall which represents a
microcosm. The interplay between these two factors, size and scale, have
considerable aesthetic importance. This relationship becomes part and parcel
of the work or art just as line, form, composition and color.
At any rate, if you haven't done so I would suggest you try it. If your
experience is anything like mine, you will find it is a very intriguing
challenge. I haven't been successful at all with large paintings, but I know
if I did it long enough I could be. There's a lot to learn about it.
One artist comes to mind off the top of my head. See if you can find an art
book with Richard Dadd represented in it. Dadd did very few paintings, since
he was locked in the basement of Bedlam in England for most of his life, but
one enlightened Freudian came along as Bedlam's director and brought Dadd
into the sunlight and gave him some paints. One of his paintings, called
"The Fairyfeller's Masterstroke" is simply outrageous. It depicts about a
square inch of grass in a lawn, and it is full of figures that are playing
out an imaginary mythology. Very wonderful, and a great lesson in size and
scale.
Erik Mattila
Jay
April Showers 撰寫於文章 <371be...@oracle.zianet.com>...
Larry Seiler
relative
> value and all that. There should be some artistic purpose for electing
to
> paint large works, other than commercial considerations or musing over
what
> other's are doing.
...excellent point Erik,
I find that working smaller lately, forces me to see masses in more colored
blocks, forces my eyes to see beyond the every detail of a thing, and is
causing me to learn how to suggest detail with few brushstrokes. Size
brings its own issues to bear which require adjustments for one to master.
peace,
Larry
Larry Seiler
artist's web site at- http://cwinc.net/larryseiler
WetCanvas Artists page-
http://www.wetcanvas.com/Gallery/S/Larry_Seiler/index.html
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress
depends on the unreasonable man."
George Bernard Shaw
Linda Thomas
unique problems. It is harder to create interest in a small
space, but large work is harder to hold together compositionally.
Medium-size work (about 30 x 40 inches or so) seems easiest. This is
just my experience; I'm curious what others have found.
Did anyone see the big Cy Twombly piece a few years ago at Gagosian?
it's something like 30 x 54 feet. Unreal! Larry placed it alone in a huge
room, with a little bench in the center so we could sit and worship it.
Twombly used very few marks on the canvas, but its power was undeniable.
Charles Eicher <cei...@inav.net> wrote:
> In article <372032ac...@news.tel.hr>, go...@generalic.com says...
> >
> >
> >How do you feel about the size of the painting?
> >Does a larger work instantly makes it more valuable in common people's
> >eyes?
> >I enjoy making 20x30 cm oil on glass paintings with maximum size of
> >about 35x50 cm, but I often hear that the paintings are too small,
> >although they are very detailed and I sometimes spend more time making
> >my "small" painting then my coleagues do when making much larger one.
> >
> >Or should I just forget about the quality and go for the size with
> >less details?
>
> I always thought it was much harder to make a really good small painting
> than a good large painting. One of the best painters I know works no
> larger 5x7 inches. She works REALLY hard on thinly applied transparent
> effects at this scale. On the other hand, big scale has a sheer power of
> its own. I'll never quite forget a show by Bob Zoell at the ACE Gallery
> in LA. Zoell made a series of huge canvases, I mean really HUGE, like
> 30x100 feet! And they consisted merely of a large flat color field with
> two dots about 20 feet across. It was really powerful work. ACE hosted a
> lot of shows of large works, since they had one of the largest spaces in
> LA (a converted storehouse).
>
> Anyway, even when I work large, I try to make my paintings so that they
> aren't intended for viewing just from one viewpoint, you have to make it
> interesting when viewed from all distances. When I had a huge studio, I'd
> stand way back, medium far, closeup, etc. and make it work at all those
> distances. I don't have a very big studio now (nothing more than a normal
> office-size) so how far away I can stand really limits how big I can
> work.
--
Linda Thomas
*Time is never wasted when you're wasted all the time.
--Catherine Zandonella*