Why Paint?
One day, in the gift shop at the National Gallery here in Washington, I had an epiphany. There was a Monet exhibit on, and people — all kinds of people — were lining up to buy posters. And it occurred to me: they are spending their hard-earned money on a photograph of a painting of a poppy field.
Now, there are plenty of high-quality photos of poppy fields available taken directly from nature; but no, these people wanted the photo of the painting. And that's when I knew: THIS IS WORTH DOING.
You see, I'd just taken up painting, and really loved trying to capture the world I saw as accurately as I could. So I'd been wrestling, as many artists do, with the question, "In the age of photography, is there really a place for representational painting?" And at that moment I knew that the answer is yes.
(By the way, don't think for a minute that I'm comparing myself to Monet. My point is simply that something like what Monet and other masters did is worth striving for.)
I've been theorizing ever since about the exact why of what makes people love paintings. I've come up with a number of hypotheses, and found a lot of interesting ideas from other people. I like to jot them down here from time to time. If you want to comment, disagree, or in any way join the dialogue, send an email.