The All-for-One Deal
An old art professor of mine back in undergraduate school once told me, “A painting must have a sense of wall power!” To explain what was meant, he would unfold the plausible scene that might occur in a gallery when visitors arrive to view a painting. He’d say, “If your painting is hanging on the far wall of a gallery or museum, a viewer, upon first entering the room, should be able to see the painting and feel its presence.” Such was the essence of his challenge: How to infuse my own paintings with enough power that they could elicit a response in the viewer even when the viewer happens to be standing yards away across the room. The lesson my professor taught begs a fundamental question important perhaps for all artists to consider: How do we infuse our work with a sense of Presence?
But there was more. My professor also told me that the construction of a painting should offer viewers nothing less than a “Two-for-One Deal.” Meaning that, not only should a painting impact viewers from afar, but the painting should also affect viewers up close when they inevitably approach the painting for further inspection. The combined task of infusing a painting with enough epiphany of detail that will reward viewers when they approach the image, as well as a sense of wall power that will “knock viewers back” upon their first gaining the space, constitutes the Two-for-One Deal (or “Two-Fer”).
When I think of the objective of creating a Two-for-One Deal for viewers—that in one painting there exists a dual effect—I humorously think of the movie, Clueless, and the oft-repeated phrase, “Monet,” uttered by the story’s main character, Cher, played by Alicia Silverstone. Invoking the artist Claude Monet, Cher and friends poke fun at the experience people have when looking at one of Monet's images. Whether in reproduction or in life, the image dissolves the closer distance from which you view it, with the opposite occurring the further back you move. Dissolve and resolve—first into the medium, itself, and then into the recognizable subject intended by the artist.
Showing perhaps that they really are quite “clueless” (at least in matters of fine art), Cher and her friends use the term, “Monet,” to describe boys, who, according to them, “look good from afar, but up close look far from good.” Notwithstanding Monet’s stature in history, the implications of the term, “Monet," as the term is used by a relatively harmless corps of movie characters operating in fictional space, Cher’s concern is nonetheless shared by any artist who adopts the Two-fer mantra.
Details happen to exist as manifestations of complexity—the complexity that constitutes the make up of any form, whether we regard that form as dynamic or not. The details are what provide viewers with a peek into the very building blocks of difference that constitute the form itself. Indeed, without details there is no resulting complexity; and a form devoid of complexity stands hardly a chance at achieving dynamism and vibrancy. A painting then that “looks good from afar”—even perhaps achieving a sense of wallpower about it—but up close “looks far from good,” fails at the very micro-level of its structural make up. A painting—or any form for that matter—which lacks epiphany of detail, and yet, at a first glance upon entrance to the gallery seems to emanate some power from the opposite wall, will, upon closer inspection, disappoint. For such a painting possesses nothing deeper than that which the superficial cast of a first glance might yield. That upon closer inspection and a second glance—and perhaps even well before a third and fourth—the painting will start to disappoint for its lack of depth or of vibrancy beyond its most generalized conception. Such a painting then will fall flat at quite an early point along the viewer’s path of perception, particularly as the viewer goes in for the deep dive, descending into the microscopic apprehension of constitutive details.
But it is with all due respect to my beloved mentor that I suffer him to extend his Two-for-One challenge. If I may be so bold as to suggest that the Two-for-One Deal, itself, and which the viewership seemingly clamors for, is, in the end, not enough. There lies something even better for viewers which the artist can provide. A viewing experience that is more thorough and comprehensive. Something a lot more satisfying. It’s the All-for-One Deal.
A painting ought to offer its viewers a chance at epiphany on all levels of its creation—from the very building block of the medium and painted strokes themselves all the way up to the larger form of the total and “complete” image. A painting that provides its viewers with epiphany at only two points along the path of perception—and the polar ends at that—is granting viewers a short shrift in terms of experience. The seemingly insurmountable and gargantuan task for the artist, in keeping with the legacy of dynamism already established by our cosmos on every level of its form, is to create works that replicate. Such works do not just effect a powerful response in the viewer at only the two perceptual locations of very far and very close, but also induces a powerful response in viewers at all locations intermediate. All the perceptual locations offer epiphany, not just two! It could be said then that a painting must possess a sense of wall power or presence not just on the largest scale of its unified and final image as viewed by one from across the room, but also on all its smaller and constitutive levels from there in.
There is a cosmic law at work, which I realize as a creator, myself, I must honor as both my haunt as well as my model.
