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Painting Life Stories: Just Like a Photograph

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Painting Life Stories Sunday, February 10, 2013 Just Like a Photograph Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art "It looks just like a photograph,” said one middle-aged man to another while viewing Sargent’s affecting 1905 portrait of the 100-year-old Spanish singer Manuel Garcia at the IBM Gallery on 57th Street some years ago. It was around noontime. The two gentlemen were dressed in suits and looked respectable and polite, so I was encouraged to interject, “No it doesn’t. It looks just like life itself. No photograph can even come close to that.” Antwerp Cathedral, Belgium But artists know that the highest praise John Q. Public can bestow on a figurative painting today is, “It looks just like a photograph.” Aren’t we glad that Rubens lived in an age when painting was supreme among all the visual arts and he could paint “The Descent from the Cross” and not worry about Photorealism, Hyperrealism or any other shady art marketing gimmick. I blame photography for a lot o

Painting Life Stories: Just Like a Photograph Sunday, February 10, 2013 Just Like a Photograph Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art "It looks just like a photograph,” said one middle-aged man to another while viewing Sargent’s affecting 1905 portrait of the 100-year-old Spanish singer Manuel Garcia at the IBM Gallery on 57th Street some years ago. It was around noontime. The two gentlemen were dressed in suits and looked respectable and polite, so I was encouraged to interject, “No it doesn’t. It looks just like life itself. No

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