The Theory of Green Painting

Group exhibition Curated by Theodore Svenningsen and Alaïa Parhizi

The concept of the green painting came into being slowly over many centuries as certain peculiarities were noticed to be prevalent in the histories of a small number of paintings. The defining characteristic of the green painting is that after having been finished, the painting remains continually in the artist's possession even though the artist had never made a decision to keep the painting and had actually made many attempts to have others obtain it. Why this occurs is part of the theory of the green painting. The painting itself seems to have dictated its own history. There are certain qualities in some paintings that result in those paintings dictating their own histories, not directly, but in an indirect manner. A concomitant relationship exists between the relevant qualities in the painting and the person viewing the painting. What these qualities are remains the question and are the subject of the theory of the green painting.

Theories of art back as far as Plato and Aristotle. Slowly over centuries, the idea of the green painting developed. Augustine, Claudius Galen, and some neo-platonists including Plotinus were mentioned as having been involved. Thomas Aquinus at the University of Paris in the 1200s became involved in the concept of such a painting. During the next several centuries a number of philosophers put forth various theories regarding the green painting. During the Middle Ages when scholasticism dominated discussions and inquiries in the universities, many doctors scholastici were involved in an informal manner with theories of the green painting. This question persisted through the middle ages.

As the era of modern philosophy arrived, the idea of the green painting continued to be discussed with the idea of qualities replacing the earlier ideas of scholasticism. During the 20th century, the idea of art having to be of a certain type of thing or having to have certain qualities began to change to one in which anything, or almost anything, could be art. The view that there was an exhaustive list of qualities relevant to art was untenable. This lead to the argument that there could be no objective judgment as to good or bad in art since the was no list of qualities to be used as criteria. The question of whether or not this is a valid view is not of concern here. The theory of the green painting is concerned with the question of just what qualities are in a painting that result in it being a green painting