Our “classic” imitation or illusion of a glass as a solid, isolated thing in a static, empty space fixed for all time.
Clear outline, deep perspective, smooth shading, dark “gravy” colors.
“The principal person in a picture is light”, Manet said. We flatten our glass to a rough, temporary “impression”.
Simple bright shapes, no shadows, sketchy brushwork.
“Monet is an eye, but what an eye.” (Cézanne) Our glass dissolves into atmosphere, like light on a haystack or mist.
Fast painting to catch changing light, no solid form, broken color.
The subject matter of Cézanne is not an apple or a person or a glass but a color-space, structure and rhythm.
Advancing and receding color planes, spatial lines.
Cubism breaks our glass into bits and pushes space around until it flickers like an early movie-montage.
Multispective, counter-space, relativity, simultaneity, etc
Seurat broke light into “points” of color (like a prism does) and your eyes mix them together at a distance.
Pure yellow dots next to pure blue dots look all green.
One doesn’t think to drink out of a glass that “expresses” a Van-Gogh-like inner emotional tension.
Startling color streaks, nervous, swirling lines.
Piles of paint tell us more about Rouault’s feelings than about “outside things” like glasses.
Smeared color, heavy, rough, black lines.
A futurist attempt to represent a glass in motion will always look like a walking dog or a wagging tail.
A stroboscopic camera does this thing these days.
The essential structural elements of all glasses and all things. (A finale and a fresh “constructivist” start.)
Concrete shape-spaces, abstract color-shapes.
A wine glass becomes at some point a pretty universe of non-objective bubbles.
Lots of triangles and circles, rulers and compasses allowed.
A draughtsman’s language becomes too esoteric, too intellectualized for our space.
Top-side, below, port and starboard views and sizes.
“Wit” is the only thing that can still tackle a subject-matter and get away with it.
“Play” is a good word. “Ye must be born again.”
“Modernistic” is a bad word, revealing a middle class castration complex, etc.
Plain, dopey distortion, the last propping-up of subject.
We don’t finish but begin with a flat space. An artist tries to make it alive – YOU are its subject finally – [s]he tries to make YOU alive.
Try it yourself. YOU hold the cosmos in a color.