Christiane Pflug Still Life with Flowers and Tea Pot tempera on canvas 1957 I have been thinking of the issue of skill in art. When I think back on previous years spent wandering the galleries and contemporary art exhibitions at museums in Los Angeles, I observed much fetishization of “finish.” I would describe it as a certain smoothness of surface, a feeling of professionalism about all aspects of the painting or sculpture, a light irony of tone. It is not what makes me thrill when I look at artwork. When I was reading a book of Denise Levertov’s poems, I came across one that describes how I do feel when I look at artwork that feels genuine to me, real---like Van Gogh, or Christiane Pflug:
Since I must recover my balance, I do. I falter but don’t fall; recalling how every vase, cut sapphire, absolute dark rose, is not indeed of rarest, of most cherished perfection unless flawed, offcentered, pressed with rough thumbprint, bladescratch, brown birthmark that tells of concealed struggle from bud to open ease of petals, soon to loosen, to drop and be blown away. The asymmetrical tree of life, fractionally lopsided at the trunk’s live-center tells where a glancing eye, not a ruler drew, and drew strength from its mistake. The picture of perfection must be revised. Allow for our imperfections, welcome them, consume them into its substance. Bring from necessity its paradoxical virtue, mortal life, that makes it give off so strange a magnetic shining, when one had thought darkness had filled the night.
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