According to Gary Towne, that crack isn’t a flaw. It’s the only place where humanity can breathe. What do you think? Does art need to be perfect to be profound, or is it the rough edges that make it real? Drop a comment below.
Where most critics see the arc of art history as a climb toward realistic representation, Towne saw a slow, painful excavation of what we actually are: messy, contradictory beings. He prized the unfinished sketch over the polished masterpiece. He favored Rembrandt’s crusty, thick-painted self-portraits—where the flesh itself seems to be dissolving into shadow—over the silken surfaces of Ingres. gary towne perspectives on humanity in the fine arts
Towne, who built his career in the shadow of the postmodern giants, offers a refreshingly uncomfortable perspective. For him, “humanity” in the fine arts isn’t about tenderness, beauty, or even empathy. It’s about friction . According to Gary Towne, that crack isn’t a flaw
What would Towne think of today’s hyper-polished digital art and AI-generated imagery? I suspect he would be horrified. He would see the flawless gradient and the anatomically correct digital figure as an erasure of humanity. Does art need to be perfect to be
We throw the word “humanity” around a lot in art criticism. A painting is “deeply human.” A sculpture captures “the human condition.” But after spending an afternoon with the essays and lectures of the lesser-known but fiercely insightful critic Gary Towne, I’ve realized we’ve been using the term as a comfort blanket, not a scalpel.
He would, however, find allies in the messy neo-expressionists and the figurative painters who leave canvas threads hanging. He would praise the works of artists like Jenny Saville, whose massive, fleshy nudes distort anatomy to reveal psychological weight. In Saville’s brushstrokes, Towne would find his beloved “fallibility” cranked to eleven.