Andrew Wyeth drew this "preliminary" study of a sycamore tree in preparation for a landscape painting.
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| Andrew Wyeth, 1941 (30" x 40") |
Every artist has to be prepared to sacrifice their only wealth-- hours of their life-- on the altar of the Great God of Art. Still, one might be excused for wondering: was this guy nuts?
Was this drawing a wise sacrifice of the artist's time? What did he learn? What did he create? Could this image have been better handled by photography? Or AI?
On the other hand, even a true believer gets no guarantee that the deity will reward his or her faith. After Wyeth dedicated a week in fealty to drawing that tree, what if he miscalculated by adding some additional detail such as that twig at the bottom? What happens if the detail turned out to be a misjudgment?
The great philosophers from Thomas Aquinas (in his 1265 Summa Theologiae) to John Locke (in his 1689 Labor Theory of Property) have schooled us that labor is the ultimate source of all economic value. Still, when it comes to deciding how much of your life to sacrifice on a picture, there are special lessons to be learned and pitfalls to be avoided. Deadlines alone are enough to save most illustrators from making imprudent investments of time. What kind of return on investment could Wyeth have expected from the insane act of devotion that is this sycamore tree?
On a background of bare paper a mistake can't be erased, nor can a misspent week of an artist's life. There's no going back to reclaim that week and spend it playing Grand Theft Auto V and drinking beer.
The great philosophers from Thomas Aquinas (in his 1265 Summa Theologiae) to John Locke (in his 1689 Labor Theory of Property) have schooled us that labor is the ultimate source of all economic value. Still, when it comes to deciding how much of your life to sacrifice on a picture, there are special lessons to be learned and pitfalls to be avoided. Deadlines alone are enough to save most illustrators from making imprudent investments of time. What kind of return on investment could Wyeth have expected from the insane act of devotion that is this sycamore tree?
Perhaps the more appropriate philosopher for the sycamore tree is the fox who taught Antoine de Saint- Exupéry's Little Prince:
It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important....Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox "but you must not forget it.
I'll say this for Andrew Wyeth: he never forgot it.
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| Sign on the door of Andrew Wyeth's studio |
2 comments:
He was trying to top Durer's 'Great Piece of Turf'
I think there is a moment when artists hit the pause button and simply cannot stop the impulse to go further. The sketch stops being a sketch and becomes a work in itself. On the other hand, I have always believed that the sketch is the true work of art, although I don't know how to explain it very well, it is as if the final painting is nothing more than an outer layer that hides the true idea of the artist. It is the seed of something great, but the essence is that seed.
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