Human
beings are fascinatingly creative creatures, coming up with a number of
different art forms, from theater to dance to music to sculpture and
two-dimensional art. Let’s focus on that last category for a moment: art
on a flat surface. Here, we find all sorts of mediums, genres, and subject. By
medium, I mean drawing (which can be made by pen and ink, oil pastels, or
pencils), painting (oil, tempera, acrylic, and even spray paint), collage,
photographs, and so forth; if we wanted to go further with medium, we might
even include what the art is done on—paper, canvas, or even the walls of a
building. By genre, I mean the loose and nebulous ways we categorize a “type”
of art as: abstract, impressionistic, purely decorative, murals, comics, and so
forth. And as for subject, the sky is the limit, from landscapes, still life,
and portraits to superheroes (a favorite subject of comic book art),
dreamscapes (which many murals depict), and plants (which decorate any number
of household items). Two-dimensional art certainly is amazing in its variety,
and we all admit it.
That
is why, if you were to start critiquing a caricature artist’s drawings for
their unrealistic anatomy, you’d sound a bit foolish. If you insisted that a photographer
use certain brush strokes in his art, he’d likely wonder if maybe those paint
fumes hadn’t gone to your head. If you complained that a landscape painting wasn’t
telling an exciting enough story, or that a comic book panel wouldn’t look cute
as wallpaper, or that a mural in a children’s library wasn’t provocative
enough, you’re likely to get some strange looks (and rightly so). Basically, if
you give advice or a critique for one sort of two-dimensional art and act as if
it applies to all two-dimensional
art, you’re going to sound like a raving lunatic at best and an arrogant snob
at worst.
And it’s the same thing
with writing advice!
