Faldoni, parts 2864 - 2867

 2864. And meanwhile I sit holed up in my studio for months and months slaving away, and that painter dashes something off, better than I can ever do and then probably waltzes of to the cafe where he sits having coffee with his artistic friends and talks about art, It just isn’t fair!

 2865. But when I got home there in my studio was my painting, sitting in mute judgment of my way of working. I pondered this problem for many days, and the question, how can a painting with no detail be better than a painting with a lot of minute detail? And then all of a sudden it hit me.

 2866. The textures in the paint from the brush substitute for the details of reality, and although a painting doesn’t have infinite detail, it does have infinite texture and that is why it is visually satisfying.

2867. And this is the reason that I paintings like poor rivals in Paris do have been sandpapered and rubbed out with turpentine. It is so the image can resolve itself down into a satisfying complex visual texture, a very fine grainy surface. And that complex surface is a perfect substitute for accumulated detail. Because the slow accumulation of small details is a deadening process, which leads to lifeless pictures.