Digital BW, The Print

"Martin Wesley" <mwesley250@...> writes:

> I don't know that I care too much about that either and you start to get
> lost in the definitions. I could reasonably say that photography is one of
> many graphic art forms but I know what you are taking about. A photographer
> I know started out hand tinting and has involved the full blown use of oils
> to the point that none of the silver emulsion shows through on some of the
> pieces. Is it painting? Is it photography? Perhaps it is both and an art
> critic would call it "mixed media"  Personally I don't think that it is
> necessary to assign a piece of work to a category.

Categories can be useful in tracing influences and history, but it's
important not to think that the category actually defines the art in
any meaningful way.  It can be illuminating to watch a particular
technique, idea, or whatever, sweep through time, but that's never
*all* that's going on in any work. 

Curators also need to know about actual materials used in a work, to
aid in their ultimately futile battle to preserve them (nothing lasts
forever).  But that's not an artistic issue at all.  It may, however,
be part of why museums like to hang "medium" labels on artworks.
-- 
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@...  /  http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
 John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net
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