“When photography was invented, it was often claimed
that painting from life would wither, and a new, exotic plant would
grow….Something more insidious has happened; a generation has grown up
mistaking photography for reality. Assigned to draw a still life in a friend’s
drawing class, a student walked in, leaned over the set up and quickly,
casually, snapped a picture on his phone. ‘I’ll do it at home,’ he explained on
the way out the door. This sums up, for me, a ghastly devolution of life
itself. I find it unlikely this kid will ever have the queasy experience of
leaning over the yawning gap between breathing forms, the bodily integration
and disorientation in space. Why? Because experience has literally been
flattened out for him. The magnificent writhe, pulse and pull of form and
gravity has safely been reduced to a small, flat sadness….[W]e no longer draw
immersed in being, responding to the flow and curve of physicality. We
passively eat a pre-packaged visual meal.”—American painter Lincoln Perry, “Guest Column: Is Drawing Dead?”, Salmagundi, Winter-Spring 2018
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