woocommerce-shipping-per-product domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /var/www/staging.esse.ca/htdocs/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131complianz-gdpr domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /var/www/staging.esse.ca/htdocs/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131In a talk given in 2019 at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, art historian Isabelle Graw observed that painting enjoys enormous intellectual prestige and that it has been the subject, in recent years, of many analyses and theories.1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 1 <\/a> - Drawing on Graw\u2019s book The Love of Painting: Genealogy of a Success Medium<\/em>published in 2018 by Sternberg Press, the talk \u201cThe Vitality of Painting\u2014 Notes on the Success of a Medium\u201d is available online.<\/span>. The ongoing reaffirmation of painting\u2019s vitality through different independent exhibition projects or through its valorization in museum collections likely helps to strengthen this perception. However, works offering in-depth reflections on the most current issues are rare, at least in the Canadian academic context. <\/pre>\n\n\n\nThe decision made by Esse<\/em> to present features dedicated to painting,2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 2 <\/a> - See in particular issue 76 of Esse<\/em>,The Idea of Painting<\/em> (Fall 2012).<\/span>though our themes are often based on social issues, is part of an attempt to encourage critical analyses of painting practices. The idea of (re)seeing painting<\/em> invited writers to move away from recurring considerations of its death and resurrec- tion, which, as Daniel Fiset emphasizes, \u201cdon\u2019t go too far beyond the polemical or rhetorical: their constant references to previous art discourse turn their own arguments into a kind of living-dead.\u201d It is important, however, to caution those who might expect this issue to offer a report on the state of painting today. While presenting a selection of articles that attest to the diversity of aesthetic and conceptual approaches to this art form, above all this issue puts forward some considerations of the different strategies deployed in art practices or dissemination networks. We note, for example, how the digital era has substantially trans- formed the modes of circulation and reception of painting, a transformation that has been exacerbated by the lockdown. The Web has not only enabled an unprecedented access to works, but has also con- tributed to their reappropriation by Internet users and their renewal outside of the art field. The mass culture conveyed by social media also feeds the imaginaries of many artists who, by channelling it into their work, create a kind of back and forth between the materialization of the digital on canvas and the dematerialization of painting in the virtual world where it is presented. <\/p>\n\n\n\nWe also notice a renewed interest in figuration, as well as in a style sometimes characterized by popular or more marginal iconography associated with social movements (particularly queer culture) and sometimes, by a reactivation of genres from classical or modernist art history. Yet the attempts to develop new pictorial genres by reproducing previous ones (what critics call the zombie style) raise questions about the originality of the works or the intentions of the artists, who are suspected of falling into the trap of commercial considerations. The fact is that for a long time the transactional aspects of painting, reinforced by its unique or non-reproducible character, have placed it at the forefront of debates on the capitalization of art. This issue is no exception. A careful and sensitive reading will prevent us, however, from perceiving merely a virulent criticism of these aesthetic trends. As Connor Spencer states in reference to technical virtuosity, used perhaps as a gimmick to counteract representational ease in certain figurative works, \u201cthe gimmick can be a \u2018survival strategy\u2019 for vulnerable subjects\u201d seeking to avoid capitalism\u2019s grip. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In light of such controversies, we realize that paint- ing hasn\u2019t lost any of its ability to raise the theorists\u2019 interest in putting forward engaging considerations. Though pictorial research may remain central to painters, some of them use their works as formidable tools of empowerment or protest, while others consider them as a means to critically examine society. The words of Thomas Fort apply to many artists: \u201cThey take a transverse path in order to elude the inherited conservative dogmas of narratives and academic hierarchies whose overriding power persists.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ultimately, assembling the works by discipline rather than by theme offers a chance to appreciate the profusion of ideas being developed by painters. It also helps us to realize that painting has always maintained the ability to talk about itself and the world around it at the same time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Translated from the French by Oana Avasilichioaei<\/strong><\/p>\n