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I’m not going to lie, I’m writing this on drugs. Drugs my doctor prescribed me for pain following a procedure, but drugs nonetheless. Being in the presence of a plethora of doctors yesterday and of a hazy mind today, I have been thinking about the idea of specialization and how it relates to art.

Doctors train for years to get a base-level knowledge of medicine and then go on for even more training in a specialty. For the most part, when they are done they have a sturdy foundation of understanding and then they are able to build elaborate specialties as they focus in on what they are invested in (Neurology, Endocrinology, Psychology, Dermatology, Urology, etc.) Most doctors choose specialties based on interest or talent and they never stop studying and learning about their line of work.

This should be true of artists as well. We should start with the desire to create, training in the tradition and skills (including self-training), refinement of those skills so that we may take art and make it our own, and continued study. All of these are crucial to the development of an artist.

Franz Kline is a great example of this. He started out as a realist painter. He was trained in the ways of the Old Masters, particularly Rembrandt, and after building a foundation in the tradition of painting, was able to develop his own skills and begin painting in a style that is very much his own. And he continued to learn and evolve as an artist.

While on first glance Kline’s paintings may seem simple and easy, they are deeply rooted in the tradition of painting and the development of his own artistic skills. He was known for his numerous sketches (often on ripped pages of phone books) before he set brush to canvas. His work is thoughtful and referential to other artists, but very clearly his own.

Kline’s friend Wayne Thiebaud said, “He had all these phone books around with the covers torn off that he used as sketchbooks. I didn’t realize how many sketches he made for those late paintings. … I just tried to get as many varieties as I could, some with drawing on the edges, others to illustrate cropping, centralized images.”

The following is a picture of one such draft:

Study for Clockface, Franz Kline, 1950
Marlborough, Guggenheim, Pace, Neuberger Museum

And this is a painting of his I was able to see in person recently:


Untitled, Franz Kline, 1961
University of Michigan Art Museum

Franz Kline took a lot of care to develop as an artist and it is apparent in his work. He sketched a lot of drafts before starting on a project, got input from his contemporaries, and developed his own philosophy of art. He would not have painted like he did without his training and practice.

To be a good writer, one must be a good reader. One must be grounded in the tradition of literature to create their own style of writing. This is not to say that one cannot publish before reading every and all classic writers or before they have developed their personal style (as personal styles often change over time), but that to have the ease that Kline’s paintings possess, one must know the basics first. Just like a doctor. I wouldn’t want a doctor who had only finished half of his schooling to cut me open and meddle with my internal organs. And I don’t want to read a poet who is merely making up their own way without first knowing the basics.

Poets should know the tradition within which they write so they may converse with poets of the past. Art is a conversation and to enter a conversation, the artist must understand what has happened so far in the conversation or they will come across as an imposter.

I admire Dickman for his obvious love of reading and the skills he has acquired in studying other poets. And I am excited to see if his next book has more of his own personal style. He has engaged the tradition and I think he can take it one step further and refine his own writing to become another voice in the tradition instead of just an echo of the poets and poems he has studied. More refinement, Michael, more refinement. Good artists are always evolving and I hope to see new things from Michael Dickman in the future.