"There is no more perfect witness to the pains of painterly deliberation than the preparatory sketch."So wrote the late Burbery Slater in Amaryllis: Painting's Secret Sequence (2004), his encyclopedic art historical tour-de-force. His thesis can be summed up as follows:
Painters have always suffered a particular infirmity of the mind. From the blind fury of inspired impulse to the mortal calculation of careful forethought, the honeyed Muse visits artists in a variety of forms. Painters possess the unique ability to recognize what he calls "the eupnea of solemn arousal" enabling them to assume the prophetic diction of color and form.
It's a sappy theory to say the least and it's a disservice to my friend David Schoffman that he used two reproductions of his work to illustrate his idiotic argument.
Slater mentions no less than 200 contemporary painters to summon his false surmise. I am pleased that I am not among them.
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