REALIST

Worringer is a realist. The realities—or, as Nelson Goodman says, “the rightness”—in works are created when they denote the picture’s object. A painted coffee pot will most likely be recognized as such in a painting. Yet, this doesn’t mean that painted objects take on the task of proving truth, as does the painting The Raft of the Medusa, through which Théodore Géricault attempted to depict a historical event. We’re seduced by what we know and recognize, and by the way we supposedly perceive a motif. In contrast, the object we see is not the motif, but the image as such. In this case Baudrillard would tell us, “Don’t let yourselves be seduced,” pointing out the tyranny of the visible. The art theorist Beate Söntgen said that realism is a term that “…makes false promises. It’s not false in and of itself, but only when one looks at it from the wrong side. Then it becomes dubious.” That’s because realism doesn’t exist within a depiction of reality. Realism is inherent in the painting’s “manufactured” existence, and its specific truth. Worringer uses realism as an aesthetic category. His realism lies in the processes of action, of making. It is the descriptions, the connection to each cultural context, the perspectives of the discourse, and the knowledge that viewers bring with them that allow motifs to appear in Worringer’s paintings.