ABSTRACT
Suppose that, due to an episode of virulent iconoclasm, every painting, print and drawing were destroyed. Will we have lost something whose value nothing can replace? The answer is hardly obvious. We value paintings because they describe scenes, delight the senses, express emotions and communicate ideas, but we may value a work of film, dance, music or poetry for all the same reasons. Indeed, a film may describe a scene better than any painting, an aria express emotions more powerfully, a dance delight the senses more exquisitely, or a poem convey ideas more clearly. This suggests that if painting is to have a value, or values, of its own, then it must do at least some of these things in a distinctive manner. So, what is painting’s distinctive character? An answer to this question is necessary if we also want to know what particular value or values accrue to paintings. Before looking at some answers to these questions, a word about what counts as a
painting. A painting is any picture whose surface is made up of a pattern of marks entirely and purposively inscribed by movements of the painter’s body. This stipulative definition is somewhat unconventional because it includes drawing and much printmaking, and it is not completely informative, as it takes for granted that we know what a picture is (and thus why handwriting is not necessarily painting). Yet it is a useful definition because it leaves out photographs and because it makes room for abstract paintings that contain no recognizable images. Incidentally, few definitions are perfect and this one is vague enough to permit some borderline cases, such as Damien Hirst’s spin paintings – random splatters that are made by spinning a disk, not inscribed purposively. As a final note, the definition does not ask us to assume that all paintings are works of art. The practice of art painting does not own a monopoly on painterly value, even if it may lay claim to its most spectacular examples.
