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NO STYLE
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Message
Posted
Some thoughts on style which came out of this mornings comments.
Today I received this comment on my upload.
“I do like your style of painting John, totally different to mine so perhaps that's the reason.”
This word style often comes up, its something we all want to achieve “a good style.” We see it in other peoples work but do not recognise our own. We all are after trying to achieve a good style. People would say to me I recognise your style and i would think, hmm where is it. Obviously style comes with the mediums and tools we choose to work with, it evolve, like our hand writing. Can one change ones style? yes but we would have to develop a new way of working, with different procedures and so on. I feel styles have developed and evolved because new working methods have come out of new materials to work will. For example Impressionism would not have evolved if not for the development of the hog brush, and paints put into stubs. This enabled artist to get out into the landscape. The new materials enables artist to work in a different fashion. Photography also has had an immense impact on style. Objects half in and half out of the canvas was never done before photography.
Back to my first quote. I felt exactly the same way. I like the commentators style because it is so different from mine, such beautiful deep rich colour he uses.
Posted
Style develops over time - I don't think it ever really stops evolving, though some things tend to stay constant. There is that magic moment when you realize you're no longer painting like the artists you admired, but have moved beyond them and begun to acquire your own; same thing is true of writing, as I can attest as a former journalist (among other things). You won't necessarily be better than your former idols - that's another matter entirely - but at least you will be speaking in your own voice.
Posted
I tried for ages to find my own style, and I didn't realise I had one until people told that I had. But now I accept I have my own style, I keep battling it, trying to paint in a looser way, or a bit more like this artist or that artist, and each time my paintings end up in the same style. I think style develops gradually which is why you don't notice it happening. It more than likely keeps on evolving too, as we learn more, see other artists' work, learn new techniques etc. The interesting thing I have realised, is that I am attracted to paintings done in styles I can't quite achieve: ones with big brush strokes, big blocky shapes, strong colours.
I did once do a painting in the style of Van Gogh, but I did it by using a cosmetic sponge instead of a paintbrush!
Kay M
Posted
No, I don't think so - at the end of the day, we all paint what we want to paint, what we enjoy, what brings home the sales perhaps, what expresses that which we wish to say. It might extend my repertoire, for instance, if I were to take up painting abstracts - but I have no interest in doing so, and whether I would benefit from it, I don't know.... I'm not going to be pressured into it because anyone tells me it would be good for me, though!
You paint portraits, that's what you do - it may not always be what you do, but that's your decision entirely. The limitations people impose upon themselves are more technical - they imprison themselves within them, eg by not bothering to learn, or being nervous of learning, perhaps, about the quality of different paints, brushes and surfaces, assuming the way they do it is 'good enough for me' - but a serious artist doesn't just want 'good enough'. S/he experiments all the time - but that doesn't mean subject matter so much as method; and of course if a method works for a given work, that's the one you'll use.... so it's not easy to be specific.
Discussing these things isn't helped by the snobbism in which this country is so mired - we ought to be able to use words like amateur and professional without assuming there's something inferior about the former - there isn't, and anyway how do you begin to define the difference? It reminds me of the distinction between 'gentleman' and 'players' - it's a social distinction which has nothing to do with the actual performance.
Posted
View:
I think consciously worrying about a certain "style" is a bit restrictive. Over awareness of it can make the painter/artist, think about adhering to it instead of just being bold and expressive. How can you practise a style? I am told I have a recognisable one, yet it isn't a purposeful one and I paint so many different topics in totally different ways. This is okay if it's unconsciously done, but I honestly never try to work in any set way. Why do that when there is so much to investigate/learn about art and so many ways to express it. I use photographs/images sometimes as bases for idea, not to copy from because if you reproduce a photograph perfectly, you may as just well just not bother, it isn't your unique work, but you can take shapes and perspective and learn from it by looking at how it really is. That said, what you then paint is your own. Art isn't about paintings or subjects, but about the artist and the way they see things. I would never want to paint like Picasso or indeed Constable, but both have allowed me to understand what art really is, and Van Gogh more so, and why it's the artists individuality that matters. This view allows me at appreciate all the works on here, not just some, and not get above myself or be critical. What I'm actually looking at is how individual folk see the world, and that's an education in itself. A couple of years ago I would never have painted an abstract work, because I'd made no effort to understand the concept (and, quite frankly, a lot of codology goes on under fancy titles,) but it's an interestring field and just another chapter in the great art bible. I'm on Chapter Three at the moment. 😆