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An excellent and impassioned argument for illustration as a venue being anything but mutually exclusive with great fine art. Rembrandt's greatest works illustrate the bible, and Michelangelo's greatest works of all, his David and Moses, both are based on biblical stories. The greatest works of the Pre-Raphaelites come from myth and legend.
In fact it's the nature of stories and storytelling that needs to be properly analyzed as in fact wholly consistent and not in any way mutually exclusive with the concept and goals of fine painting and sculpture. Fine art first and foremost is about humanity and the human condition, as is all the greatest literature. The two go hand in glove, and to the extent that stories embody the most profound and powerful elements in what it means to be alive as a human being, they are in fact the perfect vehicle for the finest fine art that has ever been produced. Certainly genre and scenes from life's adventure that are generalized, like: Hope, fear, love, greed, death, youth, aging, and searching for one's identity, are all embodied in endless works of literature, and painting is a unique medium for expressing such things outside of a specific story of context. But this is extraordinarily important in the quest of redefining the debate in today's art world, and I will see about posting this commentary by Mary as well as other's that have been written on this subject.
Thanks,
Fred
