THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE

In a previous post, we considered Rowe and Slutsky’s Literal and Phenomenal transparency meditation on the picture plane. (Rowe & Slutzky, Transparency, Literal and Phenomenal)

After their clear and interesting description of the two types of transparencies that they imagine, the essay tends to dissolve into artspeak. Not that I blame them, as they try to then apply their definitions of Literal and Phenomenal Transparency to oil painting.  Words basically fail us when we try to describe transparency, especially the phenomenal kind.

So for example, when say Klee depicts a transparent plane using oil paints, the transparency is an optical illusion. That is to say, to achieve transparency with oil paints, you really have to control the paint so it looks transparent, yet it is really opaque. Or the space or volume in Picasso’s overlapping planes in his Cubist paintings requires deft technique to pull off.

With our use of watercolors, markers, pencil tones, etc, it is great that we are free of having to depict transparent planes with opaque materials. The transparency is automatic.  We don’t have to fool with opaque materials.

So in a way, Transparent Drawing combines both a Literal and Phenomenal transparency.  Our medium has a literal transparency.  And there is a phenomenal, a mental process required to understand the volume and enclosure.  With our tools, the transparency is automatically provided by the medium.

The medium is the massage. (Sort of a joke there.)