Thursday, May 21, 2009

Wednesday Continued


I was rummaging through some image files that I have and thought that Walton Ford may have some insight into the questions from yesterday. Maybe.

image via: Artnet

2 comments:

tim said...

that ford image is crazy! look at the fire-hell sky behind the house as the little bird gasps for air!

i think one thing that is interesting about Cole, is how the sentiment is so heavy in comparison to the 'paintings' that you almost can't even look at them. what warps my brain even more is that this heavy sentiment might have been completely invisible to viewers of Cole's day, like fish who don't know their own river or something.

MATTHEW said...

Those Cole paintings are painted to seem sentimental, but don't register any feeling to me. I think that that is what makes them nearly invisible. His writing is just an "add on", trying to bridge that emotional abyss, maybe?

Ford has what I want from these cowboys... humor that highlights incongruity about visual, social and museum culture without being overly didactic. Or insulting.