My man Fred Gettings is amazingly confident in his views, something I find fascinating in itself. Not because what he says is right, but because there's something I admire about not constantly hedging, not having to put 'arguably' before every view... Here is some food for thought:
There are three stages of artistic development. The first stage is marked by the struggle to acquire technique and an independent attitude towards art. The second stage is one of experiment, in which the artist seeks to find what he must express, endeavouring to refine and intensify his vision of the world in order to improve his art. The third stage demands rare qualities, and it is a stage seldom reached by any but the most gifted. It begins at the point where technical proficiency has been acquired, and the artist knows what he wants to say, seeking only the power to communicate directly what he knows. Few men can honestly say, as Picasso has said, 'I do not seek, I find!'.
Of these three stages only the first can actually be taught. The student can learn about technique and how to modify some of his attitudes to art, but after this is is completely alone, with only the art of the past and his own sensibility as a guide. At this point he can either move on to the second stage of development and start the search for expression in which every new attempt to produce a work of art is a plunge into the dark, or he can settle down comfortably to turning out pictures.
How great is that????
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