Approximately six and a half years ago, after reading everywhere that an artist absolutely had to have an Instagram account, I set up an Instagram account.
The day I set up the account, I posted something. I think it was a small plein-air painting. My post got three likes. I was ridiculously happy. But my next post did not get as many likes. And I had zero followers.
Looking back on it now, I wonder if what happened was to me was as random as it seemed or whether it was the predetermined response of an algorithm designed to addict the user. If my first post had gotten no likes, I might have felt little enthusiasm to go on. If my second post had gotten more likes than my first, I would probably not have felt a nagging need to post more work.
I looked for advice online and learned that in order to get likes and followers, one had to post frequently, like other people’s posts, and follow other accounts. But I didn’t have time for that. Making art requires an enormous outpouring of time and energy. It also requires a level of sustained concentration that is inconsistent with having addictive apps on one’s phone. Indeed, I had avoided installing Instagram on my phone and was posting from my laptop, which I left at home when I went to my studio. But even if I only surfed Instagram while at home on my computer, taking in and having to mentally process large amounts of low-quality visual input would inevitably mean having less mental space for my own work. And having to make so many posts on Instagram would mean having to spend a lot of time taking, editing, and posting photographs.
I looked at other artists’ work. What got likes was gimmicky stuff that had nothing to do with art. What especially impressed Instagram users was hyperrealistic pencil drawings that were photographed partly unfinished. In other words, the artist would copy a photograph piecemeal, stop before finishing it, place the pencil on the unfinished drawing, and take a photograph.
There are multiple problems with this. First, as impressive as the photograph of the almost-finished drawing may be, this is not how a good artist works. To make a good drawing, a drawing that speaks to the viewer and holds the gaze of the viewer, one works on the whole drawing at once. One works quickly, feeling the subject and recording what is important rather than minor, irrelevant details. A copy of a photograph, in contrast, is equivalent to the photograph; its only difference is that it was made by hand. A layperson who knows nothing about art, who has not looked at the drawings of the great masters, may be impressed with a hand-drawn copy of a photograph. And that is exactly the point of copying a photograph: to impress the viewer. But trying to impress the viewer never produces a great work of art. No one remains impressed for long with anything. A work of art must aim to induce deeper, more complex emotions in the viewer. It must remain interesting to look at day after day and get better with each viewing.
Another problem with trying to impress social-media users with photographs of work-in-progress is that a good drawing or painting almost never looks very good before it is complete. (This is one of the many challenges of plein-air painting. Passers-by will glance at your work and make a quick judgment as to whether you’re any good. It is only those who happen to pass by at the very end of a painting who will conclude that you’re a real artist and not just someone making a fool of yourself in public. To draw or paint in public, you must be confident enough to not care what people think.) The goal of an artist is to produce a finished drawing or painting; it is not to produce a photograph of a work in progress. Indeed, a work that looks impressive in its intermediate stages is unlikely to be strong when it is complete. (This is why I don’t usually post photographs of works in progress on my web site. My goal is to produce great drawings and paintings, and that is too important a goal to sacrifice for the short-term satisfaction of drawing people to my web site.)
There was no way I was going to engage in gimmicks to get likes on Instagram. I was already an experienced artist, confident in my approach and in my judgment. If I had been younger or less experienced, Instagram might have had adverse consequences on my artistic development.
Despite resigning myself to not getting many likes, I was nonetheless thinking constantly about what I could post on Instagram. I could go to a figure drawing session and post some of my figure drawings. I could do a small painting and post that. When I became aware that I was doing this, I realized I was allowing Instagram to guide my artistic decisions. I should be deciding what to draw and what to paint not based on what I could post on Instagram but on my own artistic vision. The pressure to post something every day was also preventing me from focusing on my paintings, which typically take longer than a day. Making paintings is not like factory work; intensely productive periods are often followed by fallow periods. If one is working consistently, producing a good result every day, this is probably an indication that one is doing formulaic work, not taking enough risks, not doing deep and meaningful work that stretches one’s powers to the limit.
If I stayed on Instagram, would I be strong enough to not be influenced by it? Would I be able to avoid doing what would impress Instagram users and get likes, and instead do the less impressive work that I felt was deeper and more meaningful? The fact that I could think of nothing but Instagram suggested that I wouldn’t be able to. After all, I am only human, and no matter what anyone says, one person is no match to the teams of highly-paid professionals designing an app to be as addictive as possible.
The problem with trying to be seen and liked on Instagram is that it is unlikely to lead to truly good work. The people on Instagram are not art lovers. They are not necessarily people who go to art museums and spend hours looking at great art. They are more likely to be people who are addicted to Instagram, who don’t spend more than a few seconds looking at an image before giving it a like (or not) and swiping to the next image. They are people on a subway train, or in line at the grocery store, looking at images to distract themselves. Work that gives a momentary pleasure to such people is unlikely to be work that is capable of giving lasting pleasure to a lover of good art.
Less than two months after setting up my Instagram account, I deleted it. I felt withdrawal symptoms for a few days, and then I felt free. I still don’t have any presence on social media and never will. What I know is that none of the paintings I have created since would exist had I stayed on Instagram.