I never said the camera was truth. It is, however, a more accurate and more objective way of seeing.
Chuck CloseRead
You know, the way art history is taught, often there's nothing that tells you why the painting is great. The description of a lousy painting and the description of a great painting will very much sound the same.
Interpretation
Art education often fails to explain the intrinsic value of great works, making them seem similar to lesser pieces.
Chuck Close highlights a significant flaw in how art history is often taught, suggesting that the focus on mere description overlooks the deeper qualities that make certain works of art truly exceptional. This critique invites a reevaluation of art education to emphasize understanding and appreciation over simplistic comparison.
In practice
During a lecture on art, a professor might use this quote to illustrate the need for a deeper analysis of artworks.
I never said the camera was truth. It is, however, a more accurate and more objective way of seeing.
A photograph doesn't gain weight or lose weight, or change from being happy to being sad. It's frozen. You can use it, then recycle it.
The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.
Neurologically, I'm a quadriplegic, so virtually everything about my work has been driven by my learning disabilities, which are quite severe, and my lack of facial recognition, which I'm sure is what drove me to paint portraits in the first place.
Part of the joy of looking at art is getting in sync in some ways with the decision-making process that the artist used and the record that's embedded in the work.
Losing my father at a tender age was extremely important in being able to accept what happened to me later when I became a quadriplegic.
The hardest song to write is a protest song, a topical song with meaning.
Art is a refining and evocative translation of the materials of the world.
I have no sense of a model or predecessor when I write a memoir: For me, the form exists as a method of processing material that retains too many connections to life to be approached strictly and aesthetically. A memoir is a risk, a one-off, a bastard child.
I think all art comes out of conflict. When I write I am always looking for the dramatic kernel of an event, the junctures of people's lives when they go in one direction, not another.
It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful.
This is the beauty I want. Beauty has got to be astonishing, astounding-- it's got to burst in on you like a dream, like the exquisite eyes of a girl.
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