Is Painting Photography?

on July 14, 2020

Yes, but in a crude form.

The users of hairy and burnt sticks to make marks on dried wood pulp or rough cloth can certainly make interesting images. Many of the results are very colourful and decorative. The results can be large or small at will, and the makers seem to have avoided the horrors of colour management and resizing as they work. I'm not sure how much oil paints cost, but they cannot be more than inkjet cartridges...

You have to admire the people who practise these traditional and antique arts - they are a sturdy and resolute lot. If you've ever tried to scratch yourself while wearing a smock you'll know what I mean. They have curious traditions - like starving in garrets and keeping mistresses - that probably wouldn't translate well to the average photographic club. The less said about the absinthe and the houses of ill repute the better, though to be fair you don't often hear of houses of good repute either. At least not outside the real estate photo trade - there EVERY house is fabulous.

There is one thing that unites photographers and artists - the unease that they evince for other practitioners of their respective arts when it comes to exhibition time. They rarely exhibit alongside each other as such - in most instances works have been on-sold to galleries and museums before they are hung side-by side. But there are plenty of photo-only and painting-only contests, exhibitions, and little society donnybrooks every year. Good works - great works - are hung and admired. Sometimes the admiration comes from the public - sometimes from the other practitioners of the art. Sometimes it doesn't come at all and the artist or photographer has to be satisfied with the appearance of their little family of images alone.

That's fine. It's nothing to cut an ear off over. Good pictures are good pictures even if no-one knows it at the time. Keep your sensor clean and your stick on the ice. Or your hairy stick on the canvas.

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