This debate came into mind when I was reading an essay on the work of Gerhard Richter, "I want to make a photograph":Photography, Landscape and Nature in the Work of Gerhard Richter, written by Jean-Philippe Antoine, where its stated that an icon,
"may represent its object mainly by its similarity, no matter what its mode of being."
A photograph and a painting bare definite iconic natures through their indicial qualities. Where a photograph is affected by its mechanical process of obtaining objective imagery through capturing the action of light, a painting is affected by the artist's subjective gesture.
I've decided that perhaps it could be that a painting contains more iconic potential when we consider the actual process the painter experiences. When painting, I believe that the painter will sub-consciously focus on a specific subjective interpretation of the image. For example, at the minute I have been painting from a found photograph that contains a town scape with two figures centred in the middle. It seems inevitable to me that either the figures or the town scape will become more prominent.
What I think I'm trying to say that, even with a photograph's nature of an objective trace, a painting will be more direct. In fact it may not even be the figures or town scape that ends up dominating my painted image, but part of a figure or part of the landscape. Even when using painting techniques that bring the image more into abstraction, its for a specific expression. The painted imagery will become a direct reference to whatever context the artist wishes to adhere to.
Therefore, does this mean a painting more iconic?
I've decided that perhaps it could be that a painting contains more iconic potential when we consider the actual process the painter experiences. When painting, I believe that the painter will sub-consciously focus on a specific subjective interpretation of the image. For example, at the minute I have been painting from a found photograph that contains a town scape with two figures centred in the middle. It seems inevitable to me that either the figures or the town scape will become more prominent.
What I think I'm trying to say that, even with a photograph's nature of an objective trace, a painting will be more direct. In fact it may not even be the figures or town scape that ends up dominating my painted image, but part of a figure or part of the landscape. Even when using painting techniques that bring the image more into abstraction, its for a specific expression. The painted imagery will become a direct reference to whatever context the artist wishes to adhere to.
Therefore, does this mean a painting more iconic?
Hey Holly,
ReplyDeleteNot sure if I understand this right, but I think it's related to Plato's Cave, where internal ideals are truth rather than the material world. I think it has to follow that painting is more capable of creating iconic imagery, because it's not always a copy of reality, and is more directly linked to the painter's ideal.
I think, like you say, when you take photographs, they are a representation of the objective, but when you paint you bring your ideals into it, the image you have stored in your head of a situation and the extra things you might feel or know about it.
Having said that, though, there's so many ways to adapt photos, and situations can be set up to photo of iconic objects. That phone I'm using at the minute is my perfect ideal of what a phone should look like, so it's an icon to me, but for me the object is the icon, not the photo of it.
I think there seems to be more truth in painting though, when the flow gets going and you just paint without being conscious of what's become more important in the composition, and the abstract thought comes before the language to describe what's going on.
I think with photography there always has to be a consciousness, a knowledge of what the image will look like, and the creation of a hypereality, but I could be wrong. I think this consciousness relates back to paintings created before photography existed, still lifes of iconic objects, and paintings of rich patrons surrounded by possessions symbolic of their richness, where again, the objects themselves were the icon, rather than the painting.
Emily x
"Do you know what Edvard Munch said about photography? He said photography can never depict heaven or hell."
ReplyDeleteSays David Hockney
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