Burton Dickerson, A Blog

Painters usually carry with them a little bag of tricks, or ammunition, or pictorial vocabularly or gesture that they tend to use repeatedly… sometimes unintentionally. Eventually they try to avoid this repetition. The abstract expressionist tries to outfox himself… striking before he has a chance to think.. hoping to create a new gesture. This was their plan of action. So even with that first painting we try to “stop that silly thinking’” come up with a new beginning. This was the dialog of the 60s and 70s. Over 100 years ago the Impressionists painters were faced with the same problem. They tried to catch the view of the moment, just the surface appearance of things, avoiding the reality underneath. Soon everything looked like cotton candy. It took the brilliance of Cezanne to put structure back into painting. DOD

Our ancient group of retirees ( Depends ) at lunch yesterday discussed the” Vietnam Memorial Wall ” in DC. All of us had visited it, and we all agreed that it qualified as high art. It met every criteria for being called art., not just a monument. In fact we felt that it was the greatest single art work in the past 100 years or more. The impact in it’s presence is emotionally staggering. With or without that awful war, here is art ! … How about some opinions… ? DOD