I do try and be accurate with my paintings, hopefully getting good realism. I was once criticised in a newspaper review about an exhibition I was part of, they said if I wanted to be a super realist I should have tried harder. The thing was, I wasn’t trying for super realism! If the journalist had actually spoken to me I would have told him that. I do work from photos sometimes, particularly if it’s a commissioned portrait or painting of a landscape. If I do a painting of a steam train it’s got to look right, you can make it up. I love painting, which to me is the accurate manipulation of liquids on a surface. I do try. X
Mallaband-Brown 
What a mean comment by that journalist….and unwarranted!
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It was several years ago but I kept the cutting for a long time. It really got to me!
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It is hard to let these things roll off your back. Very understandable.
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😊 Thanks
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Yeah, I’ve had comments like that about some of my books, some reader writing that if I wanted to write X, Y, Z I failed. And I didn’t even know what, X, Y, or Z was and when I looked into them, I would never ever write like any of them. The way I see it, critics (some of them) are not able to see what’s in front of them and judge it on its merits. That kind of criticism is irrelevant, and, as we should have learned at the end of the 19th century, photography obviates hyper-realism in painting. People do it anyway, but so what? That’s their thing. In such work (IMO) though it might be fascinating and even transcendent, the quest is getting something right. That’s not my quest; my idea of “getting something right” is different. And, like you, I’m a representational artist but I GET how in any realistic scene (even reality) on a certain level there is abstraction. It’s in the relationship between the artist and the image. It’s my favorite part of painting other than the paint itself.
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Thank you Martha. I’ve thought about this for years but never said anything before. I think in the end I need to stop being bothered about it. Funny how things can get to you x
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I know. All of my novels have religious themes. I’ve had critics complain about the Biblical content in a book about the Reformation or life in a religious order. Total idiots. One woman who said very rude things about my landscape paintings spent a lot of time this past December selling my paintings to people. That’s just cool. She didn’t have to like them to see their merit.
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People are strange. I guess I just have to accept that. We can’t all like everybody or everything other people do…I want to say we should be polite.. But is that the passive aggressive coming out in me?
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No. Politeness is a way of making people comfortable and of avoiding futile confrontations. I believe in it. 🙂
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😊 Yes x
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