Semantic Distance

i’m always intrigued by artwork that casts the author’s personal relatives as religious figures. it feels like the ultimate form of flattery. imagine being immortalized as mother mary for observers to see. maybe the act of rendering a person on canvas is a religious act itself; you are preserving memory and making a figure omnipresent in the rooms of galleries.

i wonder how artists painting portraits back then felt as they remained one of the only ways to preserve memory in physical space for centuries. did they feel that weight in the studio, peering into the eyes of their subject? how would they feel now walking around the halls of galleries, witnessing the durability of their sketched out image first hand?

hopper is able to capture a lot of expression in the faces of his subjects—slight brushstrokes moving downward on faces, looking to be the beginnings of a frown. the closer i get to his paintings, the more i can see back in time. i picture hopper making an abrupt motion down after focusing in on a face, likely painting it over for the 15th time not satisfied with the demarcated expression

people still want to learn about art. there are rooms full of life listening to someone lecture about islamic manuscripts from the 13th century. people still want to learn.