On painting

pp. 95-128

in: Robert Wood, Nature, artforms, and the world around us, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Abstract

This chapter considers the two-dimensional, pictorial surface, whether representationally three-dimensional or not, how it exhibits depth by the way colors interrelate, and how that interrelation affects how a given color appears when it is juxtaposed to other colors. Color and shape together establish aesthetic form. Whether representational or not, good painting draws upon the rhythms and energies of human experience. Photography freed painting to be painting and not exact representation. It was free to express the essential underlying the surface. A work from each—of van Gogh, Cezanne, and Klee is treated briefly and an extended treatment of the phases of Mondrian's painting concludes the chapter.