How to Look at a Thrift Store Painting

RT sent me a photo of a painting she might buy from a local thrift store. She asked how I LOOK at and JUDGE unsigned works of art. I own a household of such ‘orphan’ works of art I cannot track to an artist. RT, below I tell how I judge a work of art, using your work of art as an example.

First I flip a work of art 180 degrees. I turn it on its head. Then I set it down that way, and back away. See if a work’s composition HOLDS UP in this reverse situation. If I look at a representational work, which RT’s is not, I squint my eyes so that I envision JUST the forms and masses in a work. I tried this with the photo RT sent me.

The two main anchors of RT’s work are the two abstracted walls on the two sides of the work. These ‘frame’ the piece. Both are at oblique angles that center the three elements in the middle of the work. These two ‘walls’ work well for me, when viewing the work upright, and flipped over.

Why do I do this?

An abiding ‘law’ in art says, whatever the aim of the work IS, a GOOD work of art, whether a film, a painting, a poem, a novel, should contain all the elements needed to deliver a feeling, a revelation, a message. It should contain NOTHING extraneous. Which means if you flip a painting upside-down, look at JUST the forms, you should ‘read’ the forms as making a complete whole. In RT’s painting, the three forms in the middle of the composition do NOT hold together all that well. In other words, they don’t seem to relate to each other. Moreover, they don’t make sense by showing us a non-related structure.

Determine if a thrift store painting has artistic integrity:

TAKE ONE ELEMENT OUT. I carry a 3 x 5 card with me, and I block out one area. For example, a highlighted element, something very light colored, or something central to the structure, or something very dark in the piece. If the piece falls apart like a badly constructed bridge, I think GOOD. This means the ‘eye’s anchor’ in the piece is totally necessary, and not just painted for the sake of the story. Take a GOOD portrait of an entire family, if you remove one member of the family the whole ‘knitted together’ composition to falls apart.

The third ‘test’ of artistic integrity of a painting seems rather simplistic. Look at the signature of sorts in a black initial in the bottom right corner of RT’s thrift store painting. This ‘sits’ on a compositional element (a triangle) in the painting. To me this appears as a GOOD sign. The artist thought about the composition when he/she signed the work. That shows some talent and forethought. Also most good painters have very interesting signatures. Maybe unreadable but they don’t jump; they are artistic, and they are painted in a color that harmonizes somehow, or, for a good reason, does NOT harmonize. Many collectors can tell the DATE of a work by just the handwriting and placement of the artist’s signature. A good painter will work on his/her signature throughout his/her career, and will place it intelligently. An amateur signature looks amateur.

The fourth indication of a good painting is the brushstrokes flow evenly and the colors are not muddied. A great artist friend, also a great teacher, tells his students, “The important moment is to know when to STOP painting a particular canvas. Know WHEN to stop. Because if you DON’T know when to stop, you run the risk of producing the big potato in the sky.” He means that overwork produces muddy colors with certain media. Overwork can show in the brushstrokes, because they lose a certain freedom of movement.

Finally, I look for the one element that makes me stay with a painting longer than five seconds. If my eye stays in the painting, I ask, ‘what is it that draws me IN?” This one element should relate to the other elements in the composition so your eye moves, or is directed through, the entire work. This ONE feature, you keep interested, and your eye moves, is common to ALL great works of art.