Re-Presentation and the Decorative Arts...

An offshoot of the 'debate' regarding realism in Fine Art is the presumption of many that what properly belongs to Decorative Arts is being surreptitiously presented as Fine Art... in many ways, this is the consequence of interior decorators, who tend to treat Fine Art as just another aspect of the 'harmonious' desire to getting interiors to 'blend' together in their disparate parts, which include what goes on the walls as well as the wall color itself, to say nothing of matching the sofa colors... this is an unfortunacy, to be sure, but understandable in light of how interior decorators tend to look at things... forgetting that there is a difference between what the artist seeks, and what the decorators desire, and the lack of constructive understanding among artists themselves, many are deluded into the notion that by framing decorative constructs, one can therefore create Fine Art without having to bother showing anything of importance beyond conformity to design purposes - and further, fake it by pretensions to a nebulous 'view' that suckers in the unwary who never had known of the importance of the mindfulness of Fine Art and that emotions as such are not tools of cognition but EFFECTS, which can only come in consequence to the the preceptualness inherent in a Fine Art work [contrary to a number of proponents, whatever emotions may be garnered from particular colors, for instance, is only a tendency, not an inherent absolute, and is as much involved in context to whatever is around the said color, not just from the surrounding environment as in on a wall but as in one's own cultural background influences as well]...

Now, to be sure, this does not much pertain to pen and ink artists - by the nature of the medium they employ, they see the world cognitively, grasping percepts and employing them in dramatic fashion... but it does not hurt to have an understanding of some of the fashions around them that seek to demerit their insights and mindfulness of the works they do - not so much when employing the fundamental essence of black and white as when engaging color, where there can become a tendency to forgo the mindfulness and allude to specific places wherein the works is said to perforce reside ...

Remember, the purpose of Fine Art is to show, to present to others what the ARTIST has to say, visually, and the means of so doing is thru what can be perceived and as such grasped cognitively - that is, thru the viewer's mind, the reasoning faculty, for there is where understanding reside... remove that, the perceptualness, the cognitivity, and there is nothing being said, just babbling mindlessness... no, this is not, as some claim, 'spoonfeeding', any more than speaking of some information - but it is enlightenment, to the mutual benefit of both the artists and the viewers.....