William Kentridge, Crowd Pleaser, 2005 [source]
“This is the point we have reached. This is the state of confusion, ignorance and overwhelming stupidity in the midst of which the very few painters whose brains are clear and whose eyes are clean are preparing to return to pictorial science following the principles and teachings of our old masters. Their first lesson was drawing; drawing, the divine art, the foundation of every plastic construction, skeleton of every good work, eternal law that every artifice must follow. Drawing, ignored, neglected and deformed… drawing, I say, will return not as a fashion as those who talk of artistic events are accustomed to say, but as an inevitable necessity, as a condition sine qua non of good creation.”
– Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978), The Return to Craft
Comments are now fully operational. Sorry if you tried to comment before and couldn’t make it work : )
“[A]s an inevitable necessity.. of good creation”
necessity in promotion possibly. Such as the pre 50’s LA based African American archetect (whos name escapes me) learned to draw upside down for clients who were uncomfortable sitting next to him.
Then to the unaproachable debate of the the subjectivity of good.
The push for clairity in the blur of this life owes much to the graphite and the wood surrounding it, not to mention the mind and hand pushing the pencil, but what of words? Return to craft if craft be the goal.
But the craft of idea? What shape takes these thoughts but words and code? And simple? pressence body language.
Is this the search for clairity of truths?
Are we the tellers of truths?
Are we more capable of profound thought today with means and systems of masters of visual communication than those who lived thousands of years before?
“A return to the.. [object]”.