Your Thoughts On Art

[Alan V]

But the main thing that puzzles me is why we should worry about it, as if we have some control over things. 

I can tell you are an artist by how you rationalize what artists do. No, Picasso is not more realistic than other artists. Sorry, fail. Nor Van Gogh. No one really sees the world those ways. They exaggerated to achieve their own aesthetic and emotional goals, which are fine but which I do not have rationalize myself.

We have some control over public opinions of these things. I consider it honest to point out that a well-informed person like myself, a person who has studied the visual arts for going on 50 years, thinks the explanations artists provide for their works is often hyper-rationalized and associative rather than accurate. Much of the talk of the so-called profundities of the arts is largely marketing. Visual arts are mostly entertainments, and if people don't find them entertaining it's probably not their fault -- especially if they can't swallow all the nonsense. If artists can't make their art understandable without explaining it, they may have failed as artists.

[Aegon]

I'm not elitist or picky about art. If I like it, I like it. If I think it's awful, I dismiss it. If it's contemporary art that is entirely bizarre and makes me laugh at it, then I really like it. Come on; there is nothing better than hilariously bad contemporary art. (Check out the Hirshorn in Washington DC for some hilariously stupid stuff.)

I will admit that I get a little elitist about music though. I respect musicians who know theory well and can apply it in several ways. I don't respect artists who don't create unique and stimulating music, which I acknowledge can be entirely subjective. I'm a hipster. Oh well.

[Belacqua]

Sorry, fail.

OK, you're the boss.

[Angrboda]

My personal favorites among the visual arts is the pre-Raphaelites. I like assorted individual artists, Stephen Hanks, particularly. I enjoy the works of the Old Masters. Beyond that, I'm pretty flexible.

[Alan V]

Sorry, fail.

OK, you're the boss.

I guess I'm just another rude internet poster.  It's hard to say from the inside.  

[Alan V]

Sorry, fail.

OK, you're the boss.

I've thought about this a bit more, and my point is that the viewers are the boss more than artists typically like to credit these days.  We are still the people who go to art shows (or not), buy art (or not), and struggle to understand it (or not).  Some artists seem to think they work in a vacuum, or pretend to to defend their "artistic freedom" or whatever.  Yes, they can make whatever art they want, but other people still have the right to reject it, ignore it, or call bullshit on their "explanations" for it.

[downbeatplumb]

There was a documentary on the BBC last night about the most influential and richest artist in the world right now.
He paints nothing but childlike lines on canvas.
The art critics interviewed kept going on about the meaning of the pieces and how important they were, they were just lines. I mean as lines go they weren't offensive but please.

So art.

Pretentious bullshit.

[Belacqua]

There was a documentary on the BBC last night about the most influential and richest artist in the world right now.
He paints nothing but childlike lines on canvas.
The art critics interviewed kept going on about the meaning of the pieces and how important they were, they were just lines. I mean as lines go they weren't offensive but please.

So art.

Pretentious bullshit.

and @Thoreauvian

A lot of times people tell me that art is entirely a matter of personal preference. What you like and what you don't like is just your choice. 

If that's true, then painting people in a way that isn't portrait-like, or painting childish lines on canvas, isn't something we can really judge. If a person likes it, we just accept that they like it. 

Here I think you are tending to a different view: that it is a mistake for an artist to paint people in a way you disapprove of, or to paint childish lines. Or perhaps we could say it's OK to do it if they keep it to themselves and don't try to claim that it's worthwhile for other people to look at. But since such works are clearly misguided, any explanation made for them can be called "rationalizations." 

This indicates to me that there are some standards you are applying. If we say that John Singer Sargent's paintings of people are approached in the proper way because they are more portrait-like, and Cèzanne's aren't, this seems to imply the presence of something more than personal taste. A way people ought to paint.

If one person says "these childish lines are exactly what painting ought to be in our age, for X, Y, and Z reasons," is this something we can argue against and use reasons to show that he is wrong? 

This appears to me to claim that art is very much NOT a matter of personal taste, but is involved in the shoulds and oughts of the world. 

Are there articulable rules we can come up with for how paintings ought to be? Or at least for which paintings are good to show in public? 

I'd be curious what those rules are, and how far they reach. Are they in some way moral rules?

[Succubus]

There was a documentary on the BBC last night about the most influential and richest artist in the world right now.
He paints nothing but childlike lines on canvas.
The art critics interviewed kept going on about the meaning of the pieces and how important they were, they were just lines. I mean as lines go they weren't offensive but please.

So art.

Pretentious bullshit.

This one hour documentary by Jonathan Meads is a must see. Skip to 48.50 for his take on the world of contemporary art. Then rewind to the beginning. You fucking, fucking, fucking cunts!





What do I wish for? This sort of command of the English language.

Edit: I predict the value of contemporary art will collapse just like the Dutch Tulip bulb market. But then I've been predicting this for 40 years.

[downbeatplumb]

There was a documentary on the BBC last night about the most influential and richest artist in the world right now.
He paints nothing but childlike lines on canvas.
The art critics interviewed kept going on about the meaning of the pieces and how important they were, they were just lines. I mean as lines go they weren't offensive but please.

So art.

Pretentious bullshit.

This one hour documentary by Jonathan Meads is a must see. Skip to 48.50 for his take on the world of contemporary art. Then rewind to the beginning. You fucking, fucking, fucking cunts!





What do I wish for? This sort of command of the English language.

Edit: I predict the value of contemporary art will collapse just like the Dutch Tulip bulb market. But then I've been predicting this for 40 years.