If you show a horse to a laureate expert on equine matters, you might be given a full account of the poor creatures aptitudes and shortcomings; he/she would discern the age, condition and probably the heritage of it, judge it´s legs capability to withstand the rougher qualities of steeplechase or if it´s got the fortitude necessary for a riding school horse. Names would be abundant: quaint little leathered terms for the S&M thingies the horse is wearing, a mixture of latinisms and archaic norse to describe parts of the animal and the interesting diseases pertaining to said particulars. All of this from just one brief look.
Me, the trained artist, the guy whose eyes been under constant strain for thirty years from arduous exercise, I see a big brown animal that doesn´t have horns.
My eyes, often employed for their ability to really see, are limited to the recognition of the animal that cowboys and indians use to sit on. The bottom part of classic cavalry.
Yet, there´s no doubt in my mind that I would produce the better pictorial depiction of the animal; if not the more detailed account. This because I can handle the medium required, that´s where my expertise come into play. But after obliterating the poor hippologist´s pathetic little dabbling in the Arts, the suspicion keeps gnawing me, that the depiction of the saddled specimen at hand would gain from more knowledge. But not in amount of detail, the artists depiction will contain as many little thingamajigs as the experts, just that the details will lack meaning. The visual input is the same, yet the percept of the hippologist will contain more.
In the picture layer this acquired mass of knowledge would present itself as emphasis on parts important for distinguishing the beast from it´s colleagues in the horse-business. My less informed portrait of the animal would typically focus on the difference between the horse and all the objects that are non-horse.
Granted: the well equestrially educated artist might of course also strive to portray the generalized “horse”, the difference here is that he/she has a choice and that the generality will be derived from familiarity with other specimens.
Whatever. A deeper understanding of the object doesn´t result in any predefined qualities in the picture, unless they are solidly linked to my intentions as an artist or, indeed, as a viewer. This is clearly yet another downfall for the layer metaphor, unless you roll with the punches and realize that layers are a description model for the depth of intention rather than for the image itself. Thus we have to flush the mimetic approach: that layers model what we actually see.
This might make matters more interesting.
- The World
- The Picture
- Tabula Rasa
- Pinx.
- Logos
Culture, The Fig Leaf Layer Layer
Necessity is the mother of invention, but culture was begat by a penis sheath and a silly hat.
- Undercover
- Under a Hat
