Art lessons - learn painting analysis
6-2 ANALYSIS OF 'GIRL WITH A PEARL EARING'
What is realism?
The real world, you say? Now that is novel. Perhaps unique. Why would an artist be interested in reality? Of
what use is that to the galleries and museums? People don't want an exhibition of the truth. They don't want to
see the intestines of a cow nailed to a wall. They never do, and they never did. They want magic and illusion.
Magic to make them wonder, and illusion to transport them elsewhere. They want to see pictures that make
them laugh and cry they want to see good and evil narratives of honour, and of misfortune, cunning, grand
landscapes of history or intimate portraits of seamstresses and blacksmiths. They want the artist to use all the
skill, all the tricks, the smoke the mirrors, all the alchemy and all the the magic of painting to make them
believe.
They would sweep realism from the wall and stamp it beneath their feet like a cockroach. Realism has an ugly
face, you see. No you don’t want realism and neither do they. Realism is a poisoned dagger in a dead hand, it is
the stuff of body fluids and blackened lungs. No folk want beauty, they want the spectral magic of an angels
wings - or to see the dragon twist at the end of St George's lance - and they want to believe!However the painter's job is not easy. It has a long and ancient apprenticeship and it requires courage and skill.
It is to provide the stuff of illusion, the ideals realized. Payment is usually small in coin but large substance
when we see the wonder on the face of the child ... or some adult who makes mentions of the image made that
dwells in that special place in the mind where people live.COLOR
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