designguy

Atilla -
I love the E.H. Gombrich quote.


Al-
I am not certain I understood your point of why “schools” are unnecessary.

I think schools of thought could be helpful for points of reference when giving ones own opinions during a critique of work. It’s one thing to personally have an opinion about something and quite another to be able to reference an entire school of a similar opinion. As far as practicing bonsai, it sounds awfully limiting to me to rigidly create work in a single vain.

I had a teacher that described the process of making art as similar to that of the practice of an olympic athlete.The athlete is trying to reduce the amount of down time due to physical stress on the body between times of performing. If you can minimize your downtime and allow your body to rest at quicker intervals you can increase the amount of times you can practice your athletic performance. And practice makes perfect in Olympic sports, as in the world of visual arts. Picasso had talent beyond compare. But one reason he was able to produce so many different great works of art was that he was able to reduce the amount of down time between the creation of his works. I’m not certain he really had a down time. But I believe he was a pretty crummy human being because of this. Anyways I think every artist is going to make a bunch of garbage just to come up with one good piece of art every now and then.

Al I appreciate your work put into this post. I like the use of the examples to make your point. Your collection of bonsai photos are a great reference tool. I was a bit confused by your post, I think you may be trying to get across to many thoughts in one post.

Thanks
Mark

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