Regarding realism

My wife has made an astute observation concerning contemporary visual arts.

She is not an artist and has no formal training in the arts (she comes at this having studied journalism and philosophy at the university level, and currently practicing journalism). Yet she finds realism uninteresting.

Pondering this more, it seems to work itself out.

With enough practice, pretty much anyone can render and illustrate in a certain medium with the desired result. But if a person’s subject matter is always representational, the artist merely performs at his or her craft.

I do not decry realism to it’s core. And I believe that it is a necessary part of the learning process for those studying studio art. Even greats such as Picasso learned to render the figure before abstracting it. And, presently, in my own work, I am feeling drawn back to it–particularly to the figure in all of it’s intricacies and demanding proportion.

But when we consider the heart of the artist, in the image of God as man is created, new ideas seem to demand an overarching presence. God didn’t only create the universe, but he created the raw materials from which it was formed. We don’t have the ability to do this, but we can modify these raw materials in order to craft a new beauty. And we can also work through the creative process to create new forms and canvases which attest to God’s glory through our practice of being created in His image.

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