Reuben Tam, Visiting Artist Lecture 1955

Reuben Tam gives a technical lecture where he presents slides of his landscape paintings and shares methods to become a strong artist, particularly working in the medium of painting. Tam explains the way imagination exists in the formation of abstract painting as well as in landscape painting. Tam explains to the students that they must learn how to communicate and to feel the element and drama of a conceptual idea, such to the point that they are moved by an idea before they begin to think about painting it. Tam warns the students that without emotion, an artwork is not a painting, but instead operates as a decoration or an illustration. Tam then tells the students to always be open to new ideas, for the aspect of discovery in originality can revive and add meaning to a conventional subject. Tam states that in this shift, a painting will be worthy of attention because it depicts the world one is from and the world one lives in; allowing oneself to see beyond the image of what was painted.