2. Other Negatives

Karl Förster writes how, on April 19, 1820, when he and Peter von Cornelius called on Caspar David Friedrich, Friedrich said—by way of tongue-in-cheek explanation—about the two men in Zwei Männer in Betrachtung des Mondes, „Die machen demagogische Umtriebe.“  Well, I’ll say this up-front:  My drawings have no demagogical designs.

They have no political function.

They have no lessons.

They have no morals.

They have no use.

But—unlike much art that’s not political, didactic, moral, utilitarian, et cetera—they’re not art for art’s sake either.  They do have a purpose—and I do mean a purpose beyond their own selves.