More Wise Words   The Fine Art of Portraiture: An Academic Approach by  Frank Covino, 1970   " ... they did not equate innovation with creative achievement."   "My statement of the craft is born of private research that began when I became disappointed at the fact that few schools were still following Nature in their approach to art; when I found myself in a graduating class of art teachers who couldn't draw and who weren't encouraged to learn the basic techniques; when I witnessed the acceptance as art, by a gullible public, of cartoons and various forms of scrap metal, found objects, or garbage sculpture; and when I saw these "works" taking precedence in galleries over sincerely executed paintings by great craftsmen."     "To ride the tide of innovation for the sake of innovation, a direction the heralded artists of this day seem to follow, is aesthetic suicide, if we view such effort through the lens of posterity. What artists do quickly is as often quickly forgotten. How many art critics today are frighten to admit that they are moved by any kind of painting other than abstraction, pop, op, or whatever the current fad?"   "The realist, with his communicative art, speaks to the masses. In every culture, the abstract expressionist either speaks to an esoteric few who understand his highly intellectual process or chooses to speak to no one, preferring to vent his personal anxieties on canvas, with no concern for audience response."     "Croce warns us that an artist can make himself ridiculous by acting as though his genius fell from heaven rather than being the result of human effort."     Previous Page   Return To Main Page