01-31-2020, 08:16 AM
I'm interested in what you're talking about, and I find it curious because the tendency is usually to want to make the paint flow more, rather than make it stiffer in contemporary practice. But of course the onus is still on the painter to create good paintings, isn't it? not the paint and brush.
It seems like the approach of painters of the past in terms of drawing, modeling form etc. makes a bigger difference in quality than the paint itself. Like the forms of finished paintings from 17th-19th centuries often look fuller, more solid (possibly due in part to stiffer paint), than what you see even from good, trained painters in the 20th/21st centuries, which often look more insubstantial.
For example: https://imgur.com/a/rGNkiNf (No offense to Elliot, I know it's a really old painting). Obviously you can't really compare using photographs, but maybe you see what I mean. Do you have any thoughts?
It seems like the approach of painters of the past in terms of drawing, modeling form etc. makes a bigger difference in quality than the paint itself. Like the forms of finished paintings from 17th-19th centuries often look fuller, more solid (possibly due in part to stiffer paint), than what you see even from good, trained painters in the 20th/21st centuries, which often look more insubstantial.
For example: https://imgur.com/a/rGNkiNf (No offense to Elliot, I know it's a really old painting). Obviously you can't really compare using photographs, but maybe you see what I mean. Do you have any thoughts?