“We all take pleasure in dazzling technique. But there’s a risk in making the brushstrokes the main subject of painting. …
“The paint strokes have taken on a life of their own. It’s a bit hard to tell what the strokes are trying to represent. …
“It’s easy to make a painting look like paint. But it’s a lifelong challenge to use paint to evoke the chill of autumn or the smell of a rose.”
— James Gurney, Pitfalls of Virtuosity, 3 January 2008
Some paintings are of course about the brushstroke, think those single wide calligraphic strokes. But fan-brushed trees and grasses that stop at the “looks like repeated dabs with a fan-brush” stage are a distraction I can’t easily see past.