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Keithspangle — Once Upon A Time In The Future
Published: 2018-11-03 23:35:51 +0000 UTC; Views: 1844; Favourites: 140; Downloads: 7
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Description
Oil on Canvas36" X 60"
This is the third version of a painting that I submitted long ago under the title of "Lorelei". In the previous versions the girls in the foreground were depicted as members of a new species that was evolving away from its human origins....they were basically fur covered people. That was an interesting idea, but it did nothing for the whole painting . Indeed it was a distraction from the main theme: a civilization that emerges from the wreckage of our current civilization. This follows a story line that is in the background of many of my paintings. I will not go into the details; in the past I have discovered that if I present DA with an obvious illustration, but no story, some viewers will invent their own explanations. If I set down my own explanations, I am afraid they would be regarded as the Final Word which would discourage you, dear viewers, from having fun with your own storytelling.
Original painting available. For information: www.facebook.com/theFinnsgalle…
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Comments: 44
That one is downtown at Finn's Gallery. Not sure what the locals think of it.
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It was quite a chore to get this far. I am still not sure it's right, but I am not going to mess around with it anymore. It would make more sense just to do another painting.
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I have learned not to volunteer too much information on what I intended and let people come up with their own explanations which are often as valid or better than my own. However since you asked, I can sum it up this way: we see by the behavior of the animals and the richness of the environment that humans have learned to live at peace with nature and to become, as Lewis Thomas put it, "the gardeners of the galaxy". And we see from the ruins what we have to give up, or alter, to achieve that.
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I should note here that , in my version, we have not abandoned technology: we just use it differently and a little more discretely. For instance,mining and manufacturing on a large scale now takes place off-planet where both materials and energy is abundant.
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My imaginary future has the Lady's world taking place after a series of self-created ecological and international calamities. I suspect that we will have to endure some scorching lessons before we get it right.
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Well, if I am going to daydream about a civilization replacing ours it may as well be one that HAS learned some lessons.
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Thank you! Have you ever noticed with your own work that if you post a storytelling image without the story, people will start making up their own tales? I think storytelling is as much a part of being human as tool-making or walking upright. I like seeing this human talent being brought out by something I have painted.
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I know some folk have done that with a couple of my pieces. Make My Day was a commissioned piece that the client requested to provoke conversation and story-telling. I have had to explain the Harry Callahan references to some of the younger deviant artists here.
The client' point of view, and mine, was that in any showdown the centaur was toast.
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Trying to image Clint Eastwood with a boomerang instead of a large pistol...would have made for some interesting confrontations in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
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Would it ever!! 
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I am also wondering how the final showdown in that movie would have worked out by replacing the three actors with kangaroos.
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I'm not sure SAG would go for that concept.
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Not sure Sergio Leone would either
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Which is even more to the point.
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Brilliant! Love your attention to mid tones and reflective high lights here!
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Thank you! This painting turned into waaaaay more of a chore than I had intended..glad it came out ok!
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It's very interesting! The realism combined with your style I just love it
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This seems a much more "traditionally beautiful" rendition of the transformation you're trying to convey. Makes the story easier, for me anyway, to get on board with - and I get what you're saying about the viewer's perception being so important - I'm told ART isn't ART unless it inspires emotion from the viewer - a statement I find myself believing 
It's a beautifully rendered image Keith - very nice indeed -
and, if you keep working on it, it may turn out to be your Mona Lisa 
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As I told a friend over on FB: I am so tired of looking at it that I want to start throwing rocks at it. That aside, I tend to agree that art is a for of communication and if it does nothing for anyone beside the artist, then it really isn't art....it's like the difference between someone saying something interesting and someone mumbling to himself incoherently.
I remember hearing that Da Vinci went everywhere with his painting of Mona Lisa...I wont go that far with this piece mainly because it's too big. I wonder why he did that, though?
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some suggest the Mona Lisa is a self portrait - he may have kept working on it as he himself changed over the years - and gald to hear Once upon a time in the future isn't that for you 
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I will probably continue doing paintings that illustrate the story-line, but I will not do anything more on this painting....I'd rather just scrap it and start over. The seated woman, facing forward in the passenger compartment has been the subject of several paintings so far, like:
, which portrays the spirit of the office that she holds. In this particular version of the future humankind is a space-based civilization: all of the heavy industry, most of the agriculture and most of the population lives off-planet and she has a male spiritual counterpart who embodies the outward impulse and goals. I am thinking of a painting where his emissaries have arrived to bring her some of the gifts of technology and interstellar travel. There is a famous tapestry that shows a fine lady being attended by her ladies while unicorns and other beast do homage...I would like to use that as a starting point.
Anyway, with that idea bubbling over on the back burner, I have neither the time nor patience to keep screwing around with this opus
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I absolutely love your paintings, like crazy. It's gorgeous.
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Thank you!
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Fantastic work again, Keith I am glad to see your new painting!!!!
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Thank you! 
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I really like this new version! Although each has its own unique charm and the interesting story in itself.
In this version at the moment I see for myself more interesting plot depth and amazing technique and detail as always
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Thank you! I was thinking of writing for the description and essay supposedly written by an Art Historian a few centuries even further in the future. For now I am glad that I don't have to look at this thing every day and I can get some new work started!
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