A Quote by Ken Danby

In painting, detail for the sake of itself is useless. It must have relevance to the whole. — © Ken Danby
In painting, detail for the sake of itself is useless. It must have relevance to the whole.
My whole purpose of taking on miniature painting was to break the tradition, to experiment with it, to find new ways of making meaning, to question the relevance of it.
Realist painting has to do with leaving out a lot of detail. I think my painting can be a little shocking in all that it leaves out. But what happens is that the mind fills in what's missing . . . Painting is a way of making you see what I saw.
The detail of my art depends entirely on the project itself. I tend to be a little more detail-oriented with covers than I am with interior pages, and I try to reduce the detail on action sequences as opposed to suspense passages.
...if photos can reproduce the world more perfectly than any painter, can capture an instant, a look, a gesture, then what makes a painting good anymore? Painting subverts this subversion of its traditional nature by redefining itself - art is idea, not simply skillful execution. So, a work can be crudely made, or even machine made - but it has to be practically and functionally useless.
Painting is something that cannot be destroyed, it must destroy itself to reinvent itself.
Painting for process is the visual equivalent of journal writing, done not for the sake of being seen or published, but purely for the telling itself.
One does a whole painting for one peach and people think just the opposite - that particular peach is but a detail.
Great drama, drama that may reach the alchemical level, must have dimension and its relevance will take care of itself. Writing about AIDS rather than the cocktail set, or possibly the fairy kingdom, will not guarantee importance. . . . The old comment that all periods of time are at an equal distance from eternity says much, and pondering on it will lead to alchemical theatre while relevance becomes old hat.
In most natural scenes there is a prevailing colour, which the landscape painter must learn to identify, and which must prevail also in a slightly exaggerated form, in his painting, for the sake of truth, harmony and unity.
'Art or anti-art?' was the question I asked when I returned from Munich in 1912 and decided to abandon pure painting or painting for its own sake. I thought of introducing elements alien to painting as the only way out of a pictorial and chromatic dead end.
I don't think it's wise to manufacture a painting, just for the sake of working... if the impulse isn't truly there, the painting will lack power.
I'm not just painting for painting's sake. I want to be truthful.
I think a fairly common behavior among fiction writers is that they want to help. They're generally charitable people. They're interested in the world. They're curious, they're empathetic. They understand suffering. They don't turn away from that. But what they do is essentially useless. Except for the sake of the thing itself.
What's great about it is that painting doesn't move. And so in the 21st century, when we're used to clicking and browsing and having constant choice, painting simply sits there silently and begs you to notice the smallest of detail.
The painting is always done very much with [the model's] co-operation. The problem with painting a nude, of course, is that it deepens the transaction. You can scrap a painting of someone's face and it imperils the sitter's self-esteem less than scrapping a painting of the whole naked body.
Painting is drawing, with the additional means of color. Painting without drawing is just 'coloriness,' color excitement. To think of color for color's sake is like thinking of sound for sound's sake. Color is like music. The palette is an instrument that can be orchestrated to build form.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!