Painting Revolution

November 29, 2024


It’s a hard truth, but it’s one that needs to be said: Most people don’t care about painting. And that’s not a cynical observation, it’s a wake-up call. Art, in all its forms, has always had an intimate relationship with the world around it. But somewhere along the line, something shifted. We’ve watched as painting, once the dominant medium of personal and societal expression, became something of a niche interest. Even in galleries and museums, it's easy to sense the shift — fewer people seem to stop, stare, and let themselves be moved by a painting. The awe and wonder once elicited by great art has, for many, become a distant memory.

But it’s not that people have become less capable of feeling emotion or appreciating beauty. No, the issue is more complicated. The truth is, real emotion has to surge back into the practice. Painting, and art in general, must reconnect with something deeper — something visceral, raw, and undeniable. It has to mean something again.

Art as Commodity, Not Expression

In the past century, the relationship between art and its audience has undergone a seismic shift. Modernism gave way to abstraction, postmodernism deconstructed the very nature of meaning, and now we live in a world where art is as much about branding, investment, and status as it is about expression. Gallery walls can be adorned with technically perfect works, but the moment they’re detached from emotional or intellectual substance, they lose their power to move us.

Art, especially painting, has become an arena for the elite, a market-driven commodity. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily bad art; rather, it’s art that has forgotten its original purpose. Painting became a currency, a way to signal wealth, taste, or sophistication, but not necessarily a vehicle for personal or societal expression.

This shift is compounded by the digital age, where the speed of consumption and constant visual stimuli have diminished our collective attention span. The slow, contemplative act of standing before a painting, absorbing its meaning, and allowing it to speak to you — that’s something many of us no longer take the time to do. Paintings become static objects, their stories untold, their emotions muted.

Reconnecting with Emotion

So, what needs to change? Painting needs to reconnect with emotion — real, raw, human emotion. This is where the wake-up call comes in. Artists can no longer rely on technical mastery alone to impress. They can’t just paint pretty pictures that look good in a well-lit gallery or blend into the background of an Instagram feed. The power of painting lies in its ability to evoke something deep — to stir feelings, provoke thought, or even discomfort.

The great paintings of the past weren’t just admired for their technique. Think of the intense emotion in The Raft of the Medusa by Géricault, or the social critique in Guernica by Picasso. These works weren’t created to simply be hung on a wall and admired from a distance. They were cries of passion, political statements, representations of human suffering, or moments of profound introspection. They spoke to people, even when the world around them felt distant or alienating.

Today, the emotional urgency in painting feels diluted. The practice needs a resurgence of real, unfiltered emotion — something that demands attention. Whether it’s a raw, unflinching depiction of the human condition or an exploration of the chaotic emotions of our digital age, the goal is the same: paintings must mean something.

Call for Artists to Erupt

Artists must push themselves beyond the safe boundaries of technique and into the realms of risk and vulnerability. This is where true art thrives. Painting must not be about pleasing the market or satisfying a trend. It has to be about something bigger. It has to be a medium through which an artist can communicate their deepest fears, desires, anxieties, and hopes. Only then will people care.

It’s about creating something that demands engagement. Not just on a superficial level, but on a gut-deep, emotional one. If painting doesn’t cause people to stop in their tracks, pause, and reflect, then it’s not doing its job.

It might be uncomfortable. It might be messy. It might be polarizing. But it will have the kind of impact that makes people reconsider their relationship with art, and with their own emotions. This is the kind of art that we need — art that confronts us, that shakes us, that refuses to let us remain indifferent.

A New Era of Emotional Art

The future of painting won’t be found in passive aesthetics or easy beauty. It will be in the spaces where art becomes a language again — a language that cuts through the noise of daily life, that challenges the way we see the world, and that stirs something deep within us. It’s not enough to create works that merely look good. We need paintings that feel good — that grab us by the heart and don’t let go.

So, yes — most people don’t care about painting, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. For painting to matter again, it has to speak to the urgency of our times. It has to challenge us, disturb us, and most importantly, it has to make us feel. That’s the only way we’ll care again.

Until that happens, painting will remain a niche. But when that emotional surge comes back, it will be impossible to ignore.