A Defense of Digital Painting (and digital art in general)

As I was reworking the image above, over the last several days, I was contemplating all the attacks I’ve read against digital art, and my work in particular. I created this piece about a year ago, but in the earlier version my clouds were too cartoonish, so I went back and fixed them as well as made a lot of other adjustments. I’m happier with it now, and think it stands as a traditional painting in the manner of Edward Hopper, George Bellows or the contemporary artist, Eric Joyner.

A lot of traditional artists and others take umbrage at me calling something I created using a computer, drawing tablet and stylus a “painting”. But as I was working on this, which was not easy at all, even compared to doing traditional painting (I taught myself to do art on the computer only AFTER I got my MFA), it was obvious to me why their arguments are bogus, and probably defensive. So, here I’ll shed a bit more light on this piece while also slamming attempts to dismiss my art as inauthentic, or somehow inferior to painting with oils, or whichever traditional medium comes to mind.

This piece is based on a real fight I saw on YouTube. I thought the kind of violence that is popular on the internet said something about contemporary culture, and I wanted to see what the fight in question would look like as a traditional sort of painting. People will tend to assume that whatever I’ve done with the computer was just some magic filters applied to an existing photograph. Not at all. Below is a clip from the actual fight.

I based my image on multiple screenshots, and invented the fence, the clouds, the trees, and modified all the people, poses, and their physiognomies. So, you can’t say that I just played with an existing photo. And if anyone wants to argue that I used photos at all, well, so do traditional painters, and I’m as likely to use only my imagination as not. The piece I recently finished below was done completely from the imagination.

One might also want to pause and look over some of my early physical drawings and paintings to see more work done in various styles, and showing that I know how to use traditional mediums.

Now for some of the arguments that have been leveled against me stating that my digital art is inferior, or not art at all.

1) It is not a painting if there is no paint involved. I rather like this one, because it’s at least clever. However, it doesn’t hold water. My counter is that “painting” here is a verb and not a noun, and addresses a process of image making. My “Bare Knuckle Brawl” is a “digital painting” because it is done in color and uses strokes like a traditional painting. If you are still on the side of the argument against me, consider how it falls completely apart when applied to a “digital drawing”. They have to say, “It’s not a drawing because there is no draw involved”. Ah, but you can see in the image above that there is quite a lot of “drawing” involved. It looks very similar to my early charcoal drawings, because it’s the same basic technique.

2) Digital painting just uses the “rub” tool so it isn’t like real painting. This argument is kinda’ funny, because it’s really saying, “digital painting isn’t painting because it uses a brush tool, and smears the color,” which is precisely what one does with paint and a brush. And this is why it ends up looking a lot like a conventional painting: it’s the same basic process.

3) It’s not art if it’s not done by hand. This is a bad argument. First off, this kind of work uses both hands extensively – It’s at least 95% drawing with a tablet – so the argument isn’t even relevant. Beyond that, if we apply the same argument to writing or composing music it completely dissolves. If you compose a poem in your head, is it not art?

4) It’s not real because it’s not physical. First, it’s as physical as any photograph is, because you can print it out as a photograph. Thus, unless you are prepared to argue that photography isn’t art, or is inferior to any traditional thrift store painting, you probably want to shelve that argument. This digital painting can be printed out on canvas if you like, or even on metal. Because I made it quite large, it can be printed out at magazine cover quality (super high resolution) at 30X46 inches. However, because one will generally be looking at it from a distance, it can be printed at half that resolution, which is 60X94 inches, or about 5X8 feet. Just because it was created using a computer, and is a digital file, doesn’t mean it isn’t intended to be printed, large scale, and beautifully. By the logic of the attacking argument, any 3D printing would not be sculpture because it was originally a digital file.

5) Prints are inferior to actual paintings. This sounds oh-so-convincing, because we are used to this argument in terms of comparing prints to the actual paintings they are copies of. Of course the original is better than a copy of it. Then, without doing much thought, the arguer will simply think that when it comes to a digital painting there is no original at all, because there’s no physical painting. Thus, they think, all you have is a copy of nothing, which makes it less than nothing. There is an orginal, for what it’s worth, and it’s a Photoshop file around a gig, assuming I’ve flattened the final image (but still retain previous versions). From this original, endless perfect copies can be made in any number of formats. But they are right that there’s no physical, one-of-a-kind object. This is the centerpiece of their arguments, so worth devoting some time to demolishing.

There is no one-of-a-kind physical original when it comes to most the art we enjoy. We buy copies of music, books, photos, and movies (or just download them). So, in general, a one-of-a-kind original is perfectly irrelevant to most of the art we enjoy. However, if I wanted to, I could use the same trick that people do with prints and photographs, which is to make a limited run. I could decide to only make 5 prints, which would create scarcity. So it is easily possible to artificially create a unique physical object, say one high quality print on canvas, and call it a day.

My opposition, if they will agree with that, will still maintain that all things equal, a painting by someone else is automatically superior to any “digital painting” I might make. There are two problems with this argument. One is the easy assumption that any painting is better than any print of any “digital painting”. One can see why this argument appeals to painters. But without actually looking at two examples, it’s unfair to automatically conclude that all physical painting trumps all digital painting. I think a 5X8 foot print of “Bare Knuckle Brawl” might outshine quite a lot of physical paintings, including those by my esteemed detractors. Compare the two paintings below: an oil painting by Charles Thomson (who I’ve butted heads with on the issue of digital art), and a digital painting by me.

Sure, many, many people will prefer Charles’ painting over my art. There’s no accounting for tastes. Besides which, he has a gallery and I don’t. He sells and I don’t. Nevertheless, in my eye, my work is clearly more complex, interesting, beautiful, sophisticated, and relevant. From my perspective, a quality print of my work (it could the 6X8′ version) would be much more impressive than his original oil painting. Please allow for my tastes. I’ll take a pizza and donut eating/barfing human fly, rendered in an Impressionist style, over cartoonish happy outlined figures any day.

The second problem is that all things are not equal. I can achieve more using a computer than I can with conventional mediums. It’s more of a struggle to make imagery on the computer, but one has more flexibility and with perseverance can take things further. Below is a small painting I made, and then the digital version I created after scanning it.

There are some directions in which one can go further when working digitally, and it would be extremely time consuming and expensive to attempt the same thing with traditional oils.

I also can’t accept that prints are inferior, because I’ve accessed most the art I’ve seen in my life through reproductions, whether they were of fine art paintings, or were album or book covers. I became a huge fan of Van Gogh, and Francis Bacon through pouring over books of their art, and only much later saw their work in person. For me it has always been the image that mattered. To say anything else would be a lie. How the image was created is of secondary importance.

6) Digital art is just clicking buttons and doesn’t require real talent or skill. Anyone who is good at drawing with a pencil, and then tries to draw with a stylus on a tablet knows it’s harder. We are used to looking at the point where the pencil, pen, or brush touches the surface. When you use a tablet, you are looking at the screen and not at your hand at all. It takes a while to properly judge distances and trajectory, especially since the drawing tablet moves around as well. And anyone who has seriously undertook learning a program like Photoshop knows it can become very involved. I’ve found myself working on pieces with over 70 layers, layer masks, paths, adjustment layers, and so on. You can also, if you want to, set things up so you are just drawing and not clicking the mouse or keys until you want to save the document. Beyond that, if you are doing ambitious digital painting it requires both traditional drawing/painting skills AND computer imaging skills. You may have to do modeling, lighting and shading, establish a composition, render anatomy,  balance colors… If you still say it’s easy, let’s see you do it. If you can do it well, you will magically be converted to realizing just how creative digital art can be.

7) Digital art should not copy painting but do it’s own thing. Oil painting has no monopoly on making imagery. If I draw with a stylus, it’s going to look like a drawing with pencil or charcoal; and if I apply color by using strokes, it’s going to look like a painting. I’ve used the computer to do work that computers are uniquely capable of, such as heavily collaged works, or abstract text paintings [see below], but also choose to make images by hand using the stylus and drawing tablet. A lot of my background is doing that kind of work, and if I choose to do it digitally, I’m using my own skills I’ve developed, but just switching out a pencil and paper for a stylus and drawing tablet. If you have a problem with that, it’s probably a personal one. The attack is a bit like saying one shouldn’t use a synthesizer to play notes, because if you do so you are imitating a piano. In practice you can use a synthesizer to do all sorts of things, including making music using traditional arrangements.

Just as a musican can use computers and synthesizers to make traditional music and sounds, as well as material that those other mediums couldn’t do, the same is true of digital art.

8) Digital art is devoid of feeling, soulless, etc. This line of attack is just an idea that springs out of an association of art with handicraft. Because you are not outside molding pottery under a warm sun, whatever you are doing is somehow less human, is artificial and contrived. By this logic all writing done on the computer would similarly be purely cerebral rubbish, which would include most any novel written in the last two decades. Art takes place in the imagination, not in the pores of the skin. Sure, there is an appeal to getting out in the field with an easel and oil paints and painting a sun setting on the hills, but that is just one kind of art making. If you think the image above is soulless, than you are blinded by your own rhetoric.

Some more details, and then the  conclusion. Note that to really appreciate my digital art you would need to see it on a huge monitor (at least 6ft wide), or a large print, because only then could you see all the details and the whole image at once.

Conclusion

I think I covered all the lines of attack. Feel free to share more. In my case, using the computer allows me to make ambitious pieces I couldn’t contemplate without a studio, significant surplus income, and time to burn. Beyond that it allows all sorts of experimentation that traditional mediums do not. For example, you can stack hundreds of photos in transparent layers in Photoshop, move and rotate each one interdependently, and give each its own mask… A special machine would have to be built to do this sort of thing mechanically. And if you want to do more traditional looking art, the computer offers infinite flexibility, though it is a bit cumbersome to work with until you master the tools, shortcuts, menus, options, and whatnot. I suspect that many of those who are against digital art are intimidated by all the possibilities of exploration that it opens up, and prefer to work simply within a more confined range (that was MY original reaction to it). That’s fine, and I have nothing against traditional painting, or pottery for that matter. But if people want to say that work done using the computer is inherently inferior, they are going to need to come up with a lot better argument than I’ve heard so far, and I don’t think it exists because the computer opens avenues of imaginative exploration, and you can’t make that into a limitation. Au contraire.

~ Ends

Below is a gallery of my favorite of my digital works

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You can make a small donation to help me keep on making art and blogging (and restore my faith in humanity simultaneously). I don’t make anything blogging, and survive barely by teaching. I don’t make any $ of my art either, yet. I need more time and exposure. $5 would help.

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