Sometimes the committed painter sees in two dissimilar genres a potential for communication, an outlet, which repeats the same message to different viewers.

Between figurative and non-figurative paintings there is little room, they are closely related in execution and sometimes concept. Both are tests of formal skill, both strive to create a fresh environment, both (hopefully), profile a sophisticated style and hopefully too, both are smart, contributing to Fine Art, whatever that may be. Both can be simply good painting.

Normal methods of measuring expertise are sometimes invalid as "quality" in non-figurative painting remains a barely measurable thing at best. Summed up by the casual viewer as idiosyncratic babbling giving pleasure to the maker only, and if the work does have an idea to support it, it must be a joke.  Concept in non-figurative paintings eludes most viewers and rightly so, "meaning" sometimes arrives with the viewer, sometimes there is none.  Sometimes a painting is simply that, a painting, and not a painting of something.

The best non-figurative works are a test of formal skills; color theory, focal point, format, mark making, balance, depth, shading, texture, expression  and so on.

 Fact is every formal element used in figurative painting is found in non-figurative, why that is difficult to grasp, accept and enjoy is a mystery. Few of us have trouble understanding that all music is made on a piano key board. Makes no difference what genre of music, the tune is found only within a narrow range of musical notes. But the notion of a painting having the same concept as jazz remains hard to grasp.

There are simply many viewers, who are certain the language they are familiar with should be universal, and are certain a language they do not understand is gibberish.

It is best to like a painting and not know why or worry about meaning.

But it's a fact that Bouguereau had nothing important to say.

A few logging paintings

The justification for landscape painting evolved with history art. Brief research points out that paintings baby steps away from craft and on toward an intellectual process ushered in the emergence of landscape painting as a standalone subject, naturally there are other factors. Landscape having been relegated to "by work" by medieval patrons and painters became an accepted genre as the middle ages fell away and the middle class became an economic force. With the rise of the middle class emerged leisure time,the "third nature",and decoration for its own sake. The effect the middle class had on “land” is known by the emergence of flower gardens and land manipulated for aesthetic's sake. So paintings as well became more decorative (a portable window with a view), less about religion and accessible to more folk. As land use progressed from wild nature, to cultivated crops, to city parks, so too did painting’s subject matter become less pragmatic (religious/mythic/historical), and about owning for the pleasure of it.


Fast forward to the modern painters of the last century, and it seems to me that as American yards filled with flowers and fewer vegetables, painting became more about aesthetics, (flowers),... and less about illustration, (vegetables). Certainly there is a place for both, but more often than not, the folks most vocal out here in “rurality” are those pragmatists who insist that painting (if they even think about it),must be about something and understandable. Such people who insist on easy understandability in painting,.... are vegetable,..... people...... :),... not that there is anything wrong with that.
Kind of a stretch I know,... but for off the top of my head it's the best I can manage.
The bottom line for me is,... and this is not original,... if it's fine to have control of the land, manipulate it,... cultivate it,.... use its resources and enjoy it,...then it's fine if I manipulate paint and canvas, for some pleasure or exploration, plan, plant and cajole out of tubes what makes me happy/feel better and weed that which does not.

"Hoopa-Humboldt Co.", o/c 28in.X60in., 2009

Part of a series on the late great mills in Northern California.