Intentional design vs. Subconscious convention

[topliner]

I think you are right in the end that there is no answer.
Peoples nature is to search for meaning in everything, but that meaning is only valid
for the observer, so what ever you are ready to believe about certain painting, you
will make it real.

You can only analyze WHAT is in the painting, not WHY its there.
And I dont think its relevant to your life what some person
who lived 400 hundred years ago thought when painting.

Ian McCaig said that early on he would look for his favorite artists
to how they would draw a blade of grass or hands or whatever,
untill he discovered that he has all those things in nature in
the perfect form and he never looked another artists for
solutions again.

Give it a test, look at how your favorite master painted portrait
then look at your self in the mirror and think of it as a painting.
You realize now how inferior painting is.

So I think best thing is to learn from practice and drawing
from the best quality source of life that we have.

You can compare it to music, when analog music gets converted
to digital it looses quality, and for learning you dont want to
learn from lesser quality.

As for expression thats I suppose best for everybody to
learn for themselves.