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– FIVE WAYS OF BEING A PAINTING – early 1930s when he began to fear that he would have to flee into exile in the near future. The notes became a manuscript that he took with him when he left Germany for the last time in 1933. — In his written account of the Paris Salon of 1767, which effectively inaugurated modern art criticism, Denis Diderot flirted with absorption while describing Vernet’s painting of La Rochelle. He showed readers a way to get lost in Vernet’s work. If one were to view the painting through a looking glass, taking in most of the image while avoiding the borders, one could easily forget that it was a view of a painting. — Liu Bolin says that he first painted himself into a landscape in 2005 when the Chinese government demolished an artists’ colony in which he worked. He painted himself to resemble the background scenery with the help of assistants and had them photograph him in front of the wreckage. Many of his works have an overt political message. They are acts of political estrangement and political commentary. But they are also a special type of present absence. Through a blend of painting and photo­graphy, the absence of the artist colony is unconcealed by the presence of the camouflaged Bolin. We are made to see things hiding. 4
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– William Max Nelson – — The bourgeois home of Benjamin’s childhood was full of knick-knacks and decorative objects. His favorite object to get lost in was the Chinese porcelain. It was only of export quality, thick and clumsy, but he liked the colors and the texture of the mottled surface. In the early draft of Berlin Childhood where he mentions this, Benjamin also tells the story of a ­Chinese painter inviting friends over to his house to view his newest painting. Letting themselves into his house, the friends cannot find the painter, though they see the painting. It depicts a stream and a path running through a park toward a tree-shrouded cottage. They find the painter walking along the path to the cottage, turning and smiling at them before disappearing through the doorway. — Diderot was the first European writer to make walking into a painting a form of art criticism. He first attempted a pictorial promenade in his account of the Salon of 1767. Only after many pages of recounting his long walk in the countryside with a priest and two students did Diderot reveal that the entire journey, including the picnic of wine and pâté, was imaginary. The series of paintings that he and his companions walked through were all by Vernet. — 5

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– FIVE WAYS OF BEING A PAINTING –

early 1930s when he began to fear that he would have to flee into exile in the near future.

The notes became a manuscript that he took with him when he left Germany for the last time in 1933.

—

In his written account of the Paris Salon of 1767, which effectively inaugurated modern art criticism, Denis Diderot flirted with absorption while describing Vernet’s painting of La Rochelle. He showed readers a way to get lost in Vernet’s work. If one were to view the painting through a looking glass, taking in most of the image while avoiding the borders, one could easily forget that it was a view of a painting.

—

Liu Bolin says that he first painted himself into a landscape in 2005 when the Chinese government demolished an artists’ colony in which he worked. He painted himself to resemble the background scenery with the help of assistants and had them photograph him in front of the wreckage.

Many of his works have an overt political message. They are acts of political estrangement and political commentary. But they are also a special type of present absence. Through a blend of painting and photo­graphy, the absence of the artist colony is unconcealed by the presence of the camouflaged Bolin. We are made to see things hiding.

4

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