"The Real Snake" is a fascinating record of many of the presentations that were made by academics and artists at The Representational Art Conference in the fall of 2012, a groundbreaking event founded by artists Michael Pearce and Michael Lynn Adams, who recognized that there had been a neglect of critical appreciation of representational art well out of proportion to its quality and significance. Filling a gap in the study of contemporary art, the conference was planned as a focused but non-doctrinaire event, of serious academic standards.
Essential reading for people who love traditional studio art and want to know more about what's happening in the representational art world, "The Real Snake" is packed with fascinating contributions, including critical insight from Jed Perl and the entertaining commentary of popular Californian artist John Nava, who gives the title to the volume with his reference to a scene in the movie "Bladerunner." Other engaging chapters include eloquent compositions by the popular blogger John Seed, the legendary Los Angeles artist Ruth Weisberg and technical wizard Virgil Elliott.
CONTENTS
Michael Pearce
"Preface"
Jed Perl
"Re-imagining Representation"
Ruth Weisberg
"The Possibilities of Post-Post-Modernism"
Stephen Knudsen
"Is Representational Painting Ready to Take on Metamodernism Without Cliches? The Painting of Bo Bartlett"
Justin Kunz
"World, Story and Meaning in Contemporary Representational Art"
Liu Nan
"Painting and Drawing Instruction in Higher Education in the United States: An Historical Overview of Trends from 1776 until 2006"
Gingher Leyendecker
"The Effects of Technical and Conceptual Teaching Methodologies on Student Outcomes in Life Drawing"
Saskia Ozols Eubanks
"The Dialectics of Impropriety: Realism, Classicism and a Feminist Voice"
Kay Kane
"The Restoration of Venus: The Nude, Beauty and Modernist Misogyny"
John Seed
"Anne Harris, Kyle Staver and Janice Nowinski: Three Approaches to Beauty"
Patrick Connors
"Antecedents in Contemporary Pictorial Imagery: Thomas Eakins's Paintings and Photography in Perspective"
Zoe Bray
"Anthropology / Ethnography and Naturalist / Realist Painting: Parallels in Ways of Seeing and Understanding the World"
Claire Nettleton
"Postmodern Poodles and Electric Sows: Contemporary Representations of Beaute Animale"
Virgil Elliott
"The Concept of Quality in Art: Inspirational and Practical Concerns"
John Nava
"Don't Worry, Be Happy "