{"id":331,"date":"2011-08-24T16:23:30","date_gmt":"2011-08-24T17:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.enpleinairpainters.com\/?p=331"},"modified":"2023-04-03T16:01:45","modified_gmt":"2023-04-03T14:01:45","slug":"real-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anthony-lombardi.com\/zh\/real-or-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Real or Not"},"content":{"rendered":"

Real or Not<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Maccarese<\/a>
Maccarese Buildings<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I started taking pictures of the places where I paint. These pictures should serve as a document to the \u2018reality\u2019 which is set out before my painterly eye. After my experience in China, where I had to paint exclusively from photographs, I thought that I might try to use photography to give me more input into the painting especially in finishing the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t like painting from a photo. I have never liked what I see in the photo; it seems \u2018reality\u2019 already dressed up. I know that the photographic process does something to the colours which renders them different from reality. I also know that certain optical functions that have to do with complementary colours don\u2019t happen in a photograph. Painters have used these complementary effects in paint to \u2018construct\u2019 a natural optical process. So the idea of incorporating a \u2018picture\u2019 into the scheme of an \u2018enpleinair\u2019 work, in my opinion, compromises the work.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Female Sunbathing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Let me explain. We can classify a human experience with reality according to many different categories: our senses, our psyche, our emotions, memories, according to who we share the experience with, even a virtual reality. Each of these ways is different and changes according to the individual who is having the experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m interested in my experience with reality through paint. Now I can receive input on many different levels, as I said before, but, eventually I\u2019m looking for the RIGHT relationship; something that does JUSTICE to what I am experiencing. Now that\u2019s a difficult word but, for me it means allowing what I am capable of rendering to run freely with my desire to create something new.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Beach
Beach Scene 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The technique which I use is the means by which the result of the piece is related to the experience. All of the other levels of experience are secondary to the technique which in turn, is only used to my advantage in the measure that I am free of its limitations. This is what I mean by justice; I\u2019m doing justice to myself (through the experience) and to the piece (through the technique).<\/p>\n\n\n

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Beach Scene 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

So photography gets in the way of purely painting what you see. The technique is no longer free to the experience that you have before your eyes; and all of the poetic justice that you can allow. Unfortunately, now the eye calls back to a frozen moment in time and space; a moment that allows infinite study, measurement, comparison. But that infinite moment is a slave to the liberty of your hand, at the loss of the inspirational moment of light before your eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n