Gardega on Painting

Most artists are not writers nor are they philosophers but rather they are “noodlers” pencil and brush “pushers” whose work is severely limited by their lack of learning in the areas of literature, philosophy and humanity. Leonardo lived a life of shame because his name was not “high born” as was his rival's Michelangelo. Michelangelo need only to look back in his rear view mirror a few miles to see a line of princes and dignitaries who shared the Buonarroti name. Leonardo was a bastard child whose “low born” name simply meant “from the town of Vinci.” Leonardo spent a lifetime trying to learn and better himself to fill up the hole left by this “embarrassment.” The point that alex will make here is that to be a great artist you do not need to be “high born” nor “low born” but rather hungry-born to learn all you can about the humanities and science and the world around you. Modern society and her artist spawn have been dumbed down by modern life and media to the point that they have lost site of what an artist could (or should) be-- that is a man of learning and letters with more than a passing understanding of science and literature and architecture. One need only walk around the “modern galleries” of our cities and see the art of emptiness and nihilistic nothingness that is scarcely better than the well painted white walls on which they hang. They are well meaning but they are empty and can therefore only produce works of “emptiness” I often speak to other artists and inquire as to who were the great painters of the past and they will inevitably dribble off name after name of some second rate hacks who followed one or another system and they will use words like “buttery paint” and “wonderfully reckless” and so on, ad nauseam…I will then ask them further questions regarding their understanding of geometry and literature and science and I will find I am standing before a befuddled fool with no such understand save a methodology they learned years ago by another buffoon. I often try to throw a lifeline to such lost souls as throwing pearls before them results in only the snorting and chortling of a mud covered barn swine. I say to the, dear reader, that without an understanding of literature and the classics and science our art will remain in a sewer and the unlearned will continue to slop their slop onto the trays of our “assembly line minds” and that a revolution of learning is needed, a renaissance of art and thought so we can return to the lofty plains of great art and taste we once knew…If you are not a learned person, a thirsty scholar of the humanities you are like a race car driver in a 1974 Pinto--- Your intentions are good but you are in the wrong lane.