Blog Prompt #10

“All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this - as in other ways - they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers. Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it.” ~John Berger


When it comes to the creation of works of art, painting, and drawing, are probably my strengths. I've always been best at the kind of art that is made with the hands--where the hand directly applies the medium to create something. For this reason, I find this quote especially relevant, and a very unique explanation of the differences between painting and photography, which I've thought a lot about lately, actually. Photographs are images that people take predominately to remember; an exact likeness, a moment in time, is captured and preserved in all of its minute detail, in order that the details won't be forgotten. This is why we take portraits of our loved ones--in preserving the detail, we notice and are able to remember things that are not easily stored in our memories. Paintings, then, are the recreation of our memories, and even when using a static model, every painting is the product of imagination, because the second we take our eyes off of the subject we are sourcing to look at the canvas, it is already just a memory. Only photographs can truly capture the real thing. All paintings are memories, some more vivid than others, but no matter how realistic a painting looks, it is still purely the creation of the imagination. No one can simultaneously paint an exact likeness while never removing his or her eyes from the subject. This is a really interesting concept.....in a strange kind of way, it makes me more excited about both disciplines, because I'm seeing them as more unique entities now; not two different ways to do the exact same thing, but two different things that, in fact, do two different things. It makes me wonder if the two ideas can be crossed........