Carl Judson - Guerrilla Painter Notebook

In Praise of Small Paintings - Size Does Matter

Aside from the plein air considerations of time, portability and convenience, small paintings have merits not always appreciated. But change is in the wind. The current plein air rage, with clubs and paint outs, may fade with the passing of time, but small, realist paintings aren’t going away anytime soon – rather the opposite.

There is a more durable trend afoot. Art schools drive long-term trends, and up-and-coming young artists of today are the harbingers of the painting directions of tomorrow. Anyone reading the current academic art press, like Art in America, Art News or New American Paintings (my favorite) can’t help but note the growing number of prominent young artists coming out of MFA programs around the country showing a predilection for small paintings depicting observed reality. Small image sizes from 3” x 3” up to 12” x 12” are becoming more and more common.

Tootsie
Erin W. Berrett ©2009
Oil on panel 4” x 4”

Conventional art instruction urges the student toward larger scale work to free up gesture and large brushes to discourage undue attention to detail – worthy objectives that, however, are all too often codified into dogma. Just as we have come to appreciate different forms of literature, from epic novel to haiku, modern art has offered us an equally broad spectrum of painting to appreciate. There are any number of characteristics by which we classify painting – realistic vs. abstract, oil vs. watercolor, impressionism vs. trompe l’oie, folk vs. pop, small vs. large, etc. Of these, none is inherently more judgmental than size – the bigger, the better – a notion that we almost universally decry but is nevertheless deeply embedded in our culture.

The Promise of Spring
Chester Arnold ©2008
Oil on linen on board 4” x 5”

Sometimes it is undeniably true that bigger is better – I was well acquainted with the image of Picasso’s Guernica, but, never having noted its dimensions, was completely unprepared for the emotional charge its enormous size (11’ x 25’) imparts when I saw it in Madrid.

On the other hand, we are all familiar with paintings that disappoint when seen in the flesh because they don’t live up to their size. I am often pleasantly surprised, after being arrested by an illustration of a painting in a book or magazine to note how much smaller than my impression it actually is. It provokes admiration to see a painting that packs a punch beyond its size.

Some of the advantages that small paintings offer:

Presence - small paintings invite engagement – you need to get close to see them. Our culture is not very good at “seeing” paintings, so a good place to start is by inviting the viewer in to check it out. Large paintings are often just so much visual background noise.

Composition – small paintings offer an opportunity to abstract and simplify.

Serendipity – every tremor and twitch of the hand holding the brush invites the “happy accident” on a scale inversely proportional to the size of the painting.

Bold Texture - a small brush used on a small painting is like a using a giant brush on a larger painting.

Gifts – giving someone a large painting is asking for a commitment on the part of the recipient (the big space above the sofa) that may not be entirely welcomed, whereas a small painting will almost always find a glad home.

Sales – small paintings sell for less, bringing them within reach of a wider audience and encouraging buyers to contemplate the possibility of collecting. Because of the space required there are more opportunities for a small painting to fit in.

Shown here are four sumptuous little paintings by artists young and old to feast the eyes on.