Your Thoughts On Art

[Alan V]

Picasso:  Crap

I just finished reading Life With Picasso by Francoise Gilot, one of his mistresses. There is a good case to make that Picasso was a malignant narcissist, considering the way he treated others. I suspect that he often painted people like monsters because he was himself a monster who couldn't understand them.

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What artists or specific works are your favorites, and why?
What artistic movements are the most appealing to you?

Too many to specify.

What examples can you provide of artists, specific works, or artistic movements which you don't like?

What purposes should art serve?

Quite a few. But very broadly speaking: to enlarge our horizons, experience the best insights of other people, and enjoy the world in a deeper, more difficult way.

Art can certainly tell us about people in other times and places. And it can be very revealing of the psychologies of specific artists. It can also teach us how to appreciate the beauty of the natural world. I do wonder, however, whether it really offers many insights beyond the peculiarities of human psychology and aesthetics -- though illustrations and photographs certainly can.

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Jackson Pollock:  A level of crap that makes Picasso's works look like Da Vinci's.

Boru

I remember reading how Pollock was upset with Picasso because "he's already done everything." That shows Pollock was most interested in coming up with something unique and original, and that may have led him to a kind of reductio ad absurdum.

However, abstract art is rather an acquired taste. It appeals more to other artists and art experts than to the general public. I do like Pollock's work better than other abstract artists, like Mondrian, Klein, and Rothko, since it's more dynamic and interesting -- at least to see in person. His paintings weren't just haphazard; he took advantage of the haphazard in the way he constructed them.

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Sorry mate, but if you paint three yellow cubes and a purple dot and title it, 'The Children of Dusseldorf, 1873', don't go all bitchy at me because my reaction is, 'Umm....whut?'

Boru

Selecting mysterious or paradoxical titles was more typical of surrealists, who were deliberately trying to be associative and irrational.