{"id":288,"date":"2010-08-16T17:52:01","date_gmt":"2010-08-16T15:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/?p=288"},"modified":"2011-01-03T23:55:40","modified_gmt":"2011-01-03T21:55:40","slug":"no-explanation-nor-apology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/2010\/08\/16\/no-explanation-nor-apology\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;No Explanation, Nor Apology&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Anyone can learn to paint and to analyze physical truths as facts, but few have the power of self-analysis. \u00a0The artist must first be a dreamer, and then a sane analyzer of those dreams. \u00a0Again, &#8220;There can be no expression without previous impression.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Learn to discern the exact boundary between synthetic re-creation, suggestion, and mere caricature. \u00a0In caricature lies the weakness of our so-called &#8220;modern&#8221; ideas of art. \u00a0The best &#8220;modern&#8221; painters do not stoop to caricature. \u00a0A form may be so modulated, so reshaped, so transmuted, that it fits perfectly into our ideas of certain requisites in a picture, <strong>but on more step <\/strong>past this line of good sense brings us to the abyss of caricature, and all is again weak and puerile; for the shapes have become extraordinary, and call our attention to their bizarreness.<\/p>\n<p>Caricature is not really art; it is a travesty on art, and is very easily arrived at. \u00a0Art possesses the poignance of caricature, with the reserve of profundity. \u00a0A great work of art is complete. \u00a0It is not the result of concentration on any <strong>one<\/strong> department. \u00a0It does not &#8220;go&#8221; for <strong>color<\/strong>, or for <strong>organization<\/strong> or for <strong>movement<\/strong>, or for symbols requiring a code. \u00a0It has the best of all these things in it\u2013hidden away, if you will. \u00a0It needs not explanation, no apology.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 John F. Carlson, from Carlson&#8217;s Guide to Landscape Painting, circa 1929.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anyone can learn to paint and to analyze physical truths as facts, but few have the power of self-analysis. \u00a0The artist must first be a dreamer, and then a sane analyzer of those dreams. \u00a0Again, &#8220;There can be no expression without previous impression.&#8221; Learn to discern the exact boundary between synthetic re-creation, suggestion, and mere [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-notes","tag-john-f-carlson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":291,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions\/291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}