Charcoal paintings may be more accurately named drawings because manufactured or synthetic materials like paint are not used in their composition. The word 'paintings' may be preferred because it sounds more technologically advanced. Drawings are often the first of several stages in the composition of fine art.
Stone age artists may have used charcoal in their art but work in pure charcoal would not have survived. It would have brushed off the surfaces upon which it was applied. Fixatives or lamination can now be used to preserve the art that is created using one of the most prolific elements on earth.
An Internet search reveals that a large number of contemporary artists now work in this medium. The popularity of the style can be explained by factors that are more significant than the technical ability to establish the permanence of creations. Contemporary fashions, trends and tastes converge to create a keen interest in the use of primal substances for art in the age of plastics.
Currently there is keen concern for the problem of how development can be sustained in the face of over population and resources depletion. Humanity has become conscious of the need to recycle and use waste creatively. Some artists use litter to create original works. Others turn to carbon which is the most prolific of all the elements. Its use in the service of art fits perfectly with current inclinations and interests.
The ancient substance retains some qualities that can hardly be matched by synthetic substances. It has a blackness about it that is almost tactile in its intensity. Yet this intensity can be manipulated and controlled by techniques that are as skillful as those used by ancient hunters. Industrialization has advanced to the point where the effective use of pure substances is seen to have a technological edge. It is now fashionably clever.
This is the context in which charcoal paintings have become highly fashionable. Natural textures are shown to be in effective use creating original works that are situated in the present yet rooted in the elemental past. As computer scientists use ancient words to convey the latest thoughts in technology so artists use pure elements of the past to depict the present.
Stone age artists may have used charcoal in their art but work in pure charcoal would not have survived. It would have brushed off the surfaces upon which it was applied. Fixatives or lamination can now be used to preserve the art that is created using one of the most prolific elements on earth.
An Internet search reveals that a large number of contemporary artists now work in this medium. The popularity of the style can be explained by factors that are more significant than the technical ability to establish the permanence of creations. Contemporary fashions, trends and tastes converge to create a keen interest in the use of primal substances for art in the age of plastics.
Currently there is keen concern for the problem of how development can be sustained in the face of over population and resources depletion. Humanity has become conscious of the need to recycle and use waste creatively. Some artists use litter to create original works. Others turn to carbon which is the most prolific of all the elements. Its use in the service of art fits perfectly with current inclinations and interests.
The ancient substance retains some qualities that can hardly be matched by synthetic substances. It has a blackness about it that is almost tactile in its intensity. Yet this intensity can be manipulated and controlled by techniques that are as skillful as those used by ancient hunters. Industrialization has advanced to the point where the effective use of pure substances is seen to have a technological edge. It is now fashionably clever.
This is the context in which charcoal paintings have become highly fashionable. Natural textures are shown to be in effective use creating original works that are situated in the present yet rooted in the elemental past. As computer scientists use ancient words to convey the latest thoughts in technology so artists use pure elements of the past to depict the present.
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