Having read your article good art/bad art I'm feeling quite uplifted. I've rarely heard someone talk so honestly about modern art. I've never heard the case so beutifully voiced.
My work colleagues & I are so much in agreement with your sentiments.
I run a department of painters working in computer special effects, & wouldn't for a second call what we do art, but we use the skills learned at art school to paint realistic skin textures onto digital models in the aim to end up with a product that looks like a real animal. I believe that a lot of very talented artists nowdays find themselves working in this kind of field. It's a way to use your art training to make a living. We all here admire deeply the work of the realist painters like Alma Tadema, Albert Bierstadt, Leighton etc. Your web site is a fantastic collection of images & joy to browse. I've never felt the rush of excitement looking at modernist abstraction or impressionism the way I do when I see an expertly rendered realistic piece of art.
I feel that many art schools are no longer equipped to teach realist painting, as was my experience. My tutors tried to steer me away from realism, but I felt too passionately about this style to let it go so easily. Even though I'm now not a fine artist, those skills I honed in my younger days remain invaluable today.
So many artists eagerly take the oppertunity to follow the easy route in painting. Modernism commends bad painting tecniques, applaudes lack of observation. I applaud you for having the courage to tell the world. Keep it up.
