yeah you gotta see it. really interesting guy and his idea and practical application of it is pretty astounding. whether he's right
or not.
all artists are technicians. technique has to be mastered - become a non-concious element - if you want be able to express something
without (technical) restrictions.
i reacted to roni's comment cause it read like he was dismissing vermeer as a technician and craftsman while glorifying van gogh.
van gogh is one of my faves so it's not cause i don't appreciate his shit. his comment - in letter below - about "local colour" is what i meant when i said van gogh and the impressionists recognised in vermeer a kindred spirit in terms of not being interested in local colour in their work. and that was rare (or nonexistent) in painters of his era.
i just found this excerpt from a letter from van gogh to his brother -
"I would like to tell you a lot more about what
Chardin, in particular, makes me think about colour — and — not making things the local colour. I think it’s splendid: ‘How to surprise — how to define the substance of this toothless mouth with its infinite subtleties. It’s made with nothing more than a few streaks of
yellow and a few sweeping strokes of
blue!!!’ When I read this, I thought of –
Vermeer of Delft. When one sees it from close to, the townscape in The Hague is
incredible, and done with completely different colours from what one would suppose a few steps away. "
edit - just found this in another van gogh letter -
"What I’m saying in this letter amounts to this — let’s try to get the hang of the secrets of technique so well that people are taken in and swear by all that’s holy that we have no technique."