Light & Shadow: The Art of Matt Faulkner

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/04/arts/paintings-too-perfect-the-great-optics-debate.html?pagewanted=all
A little over a dozen years ago I shared this NYT article with my students at the College for Creative Studies. At the time, Mr. Close's position on drawing versus tracing down through the history of western art irritated me. After posting Mr. Close's quote a moment ago I looked up the article. I still tend to side with Susan Sontag- "To argue that there is a ''direct line from van Eyck to television,'' she said, "is to use present-day mass visual culture as the lens through which the past is examined. It represents the ''Warholization of art.''" Give it a read and let's see what you think.  It just seemed to me that Chuck was feeling somewhat intimidated by the works of the great draftsmen of western art-such as Ingres and, through his theory (e.g.- Ingres was a tracer) he was able to help himself feel a little better. This theory, however, couldn't explain the exquisitely drafted sketch portraits Ingres did while drinking coffee at his local cafe.