And then he says, "Nearly all the pictures in "Golden" have implications beyond the stunning impressions their realism, or stylizations, make."
I suppose it's here that he's letting on, ever so subtly, that Realism has nothing to do with reality, so much as it has to do with presenting a scenario in which the viewer must accept it as real, through the sum of its parts. And that is precisely what painting is. And when one studies individual parts, or portions of a painting, one must conclude that it is absurd and in fact very far from real.
Willem Claesz. Heda (1594–1680), Still Life with Glasses and Tobacco, 1633. Oil on panel, 20 x 29 3/4 inches. The Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection
When I look at the orange in the foreground of Still Life with Glasses and Tobacco, I notice how its properties have been treated with such an 'exactness' that pushes it into a realm of luxurious romanticism, or even fantasy. It's being passed off as a Still Life–An observation grounded in some kind of humble experience. And the verisimilitude, or the verisimilitude that the treatment and handling of the orange purports, is that we accept it as such, and not as a shrewdly treated subject intended to manipulate our faculties, and therefore our understanding. And, that we accept it as something real is to imply that we are also to accept and celebrate, and even love that the Dutch colonized half the world, and that this must be something good, and not evil. Just by how beautiful this orange is.
In respect to the etymology of the word, my aim is to understand, to truly understand on a philopsophical level, what Realism really is. Even before reading Baker's write-up, these works sparked a debate in my mind: how UNreal the paintings are, yet how one can't get around the real-ness of the painting itself, and then, the bifurcating reality that these paintings serve as props for historical documents, yet are documents unto themselves. That we get the chance to tread all these grounds simultaneously when we look at paintings that are four hundred years old is a very profound thing to me.
In this show there is a portrait of a woman wearing a fur. The fur is painted with such exquisite-ness that when I look at it, I feel as though I am touching it. And if I touch it, what I touch is a flat, painted surface–another experience all-together. It's paint, but then it's fur, but then it's paint again. In this way, Realism is something miraculous!
The painting Wooded Landscape struck me in the same way. These hills are so hard to believe if we look at them from a strictly spatial perspective. Especially the one in the foreground. It was here that I overheard someone say in awe, "it could be a photograph". No, it could NOT be a photograph. It could never be a photograph. Look at it, just look at it for more than five seconds, and you will see why it can't be a photograph. While a photograph can lie to us in a way that this painting can't, this painting can lie to us in ways that a photograph couldn't even come close.
Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682), Wooded Landscape, c.1655-1660, The Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection
Going back to Baker's line: "doubters of Realism ...". I think he meant to address those who decry this particular style of painting, not so much Realism in the philosophical sense. And while he, as an art critic may not be confusing Realism with Realistic, laypeople, reading his writing in this context will most certainly do so, and on we go.
But we MUST doubt Realism. Because it is the best way we can understand Reality.
Art is a gift in that way. And we begin to accept that gift by looking hard and trying to really understand.
I am trying to really understand.
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