"Overwork, overstate and over-busy are three of the top boo-boos [in painting]. We come by them honestly--from our innate human desire to give more. Sometimes it takes another person's eyes to see there's too much going on. Sometimes it's painful to remove stuff. But art very often needs lines that disappear, it needs subjects that are suggested rather than told, it needs incomplete areas so viewers can complete for themselves. Our work does not have to be a seamless stream of cleverness.
"The same is true in writing. Passages are almost always better when cut back. Writing is rewriting."
He says that using paucity helps introduce mystery. In my mind, mystery=richness. I often find it in white paintings. The one at the top is one of many by Robert Ryman (from this article).
No comments:
Post a Comment