Has art jumped the shark after WWI?

[Faith No More]

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I don't think that's very fair, to be honest. Stephen King has created thousands of characters, and his ability to make them seem like unique individuals, to give them their own personalities and have about the same amount of repetition of characteristics you'd see in a thousand real people, that takes no small amount of creativity.

Whatever his other flaws as a writer, I don't think it's less creative to have a casual style of prose. It takes effort to make even the simple be effective.

If anything, I would look to an example of a writer who does precisely the opposite: Philip Roth. "The Human Stain" is a fantastic story with very interesting and fleshed-out characters. In spite of the criticism that follows, I recommend it highly. That criticism is, it's a read that is difficult for me to swallow because every single character talks using complex, run-on sentences overloaded with emphasis and big-deal vocabulary. Not only does it make every character sound far too similar to each other, but it just doesn't make any sense when you have an illiterate janitor speaking with the sale eloquence and verbosity as the extremely educated university dean with whom she is romantically-involved. Naturally, her brutal and insane ex-husband has dialogue which reads just like this. They don't engage in dialog with one another so much as they engage in an exchange of rants that sometimes go on for so long that, by the time the character stops talking, I didn't even remember what was going on when he started. This self-indulgent style of writing makes the characters seem less real to me, and it's harder to identify with them, because people just don't interact with each other the way they do in this book.

Simple is not inferior.

I don't think any style is better than any other, of art or writing or music. I only care that it is of high quality, good enough to attract my attention, and interesting enough to keep it. I'm not ashamed in the slightest to admit that my favorite style of visual art is most often found on sci-fi and fantasy book covers pre-1980. I don't think Rembrandt is better than Edward Hopper. I don't think Mozart is better than Chad VanGaalen. They all have different styles that I appreciate equally for different reasons.

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I didn't mean there wasn't any creativity to his books. There's a tremendous amount in the stories and characters. I meant there was no creativity to his writing style.

And sure, simple is not necessarily inferior, and complex is certainly not necessarily superior. It depends on different factors like how well an idea is executed. The problem I have with Stephen King's writings is that they are plainly worded, and he uses the exact same plain style for each one. I never really felt that he had much growth in his command of words.

Don't get me wrong. I've actually thouroughly enjoyed some of Stephen King's writings. He's a good storyteller that does an excellent job of character development, but styllistically I felt like I was reading the same piece of work over and over just with a different plot. That's why I stopped reading his stuff, because I just didn't enjoy it anymore. I also think that's why he'll never be considered one of the literary greats.

But I will be the first to admit that I'm a bit of a book snob compared to the average person.

[Thumpalumpacus]

The old masters in music, painting and sculpture... those were the days! Whatever happened in the 20th century, that instead of magnificent Rembrandts and Michelangelos, we get scribbled pencil lines on 10 foot wide white canvases. Can beauty be outdated? Has art jumped the shark after WWI?

I still think this is beautiful in its own way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8496Rk-Kl8

but will it ever hold a place like a Bach or Händel? And it is positively traditional compared to what came a few decades later...

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Weird, it won't let me edit that post to show my reply. But my view is: art exists in order for the artist to convey to the viewer, or listener, or reader, the inspirational emotion. Success happens when the viewer experiences the same emotion as the artist felt when driven to compose his work.

[Jenny A]

I'll go back and look at all the posts in a few minutes. But, as someone who makes my living through painting, I have a few initial reactions:

Yes, academically critically acclaimed "high" art has to jumped the shark. A medicine cabinet with all of the artist's hygiene detritus mounted on a gallery wall is not art. Much of this crap is no more than a snigger at those defining art as whatever an artist says art is----so, how about this? I say it's art!

This is related to what I think of as the cult of originality. That is that whatever is most original is good. You can tell this kind of art simply by asking, "could anyone expand upon this?," "could it be improved, or is once enough?" If the answers are no and yes, then it's not art it's just different. Would the next artist's trash can full of whatever be better?

This is related to shock art. The idea being that if it offends enough people, it must be good. Poop paintings and "Piss Christ" featuring a crucifix in the artist's urine typify this form of "art."

And then there's art that requires an essay from the artist in order for the audience to understand it. Why not just submit the essay and have done with?

What I think in all of these cases the artist and the academics have lost sight of is that art is supposed to be communication to people, or the very least a substantial number of people. If you don't have a general audience, what you have is a failure to communicate. If you have to explain what it means, you failed. With visual art, what the artist means may be no more than LOOK, and you will see it the way I see it.

[psychoslice]

I love all the old masters, such as Bach and Beethoven, but I like the Beatles better.

[Jenny A]

Erm....do you subscribe to art sites? Because I see people making amazing art every day.

Yes!

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Dude, all art is an imitation and expansion of the past.

Well, at least a modern take on the past. It's a conversation. If it doesn't at least draw on the past, it's a nonsequiter.

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It's not like the priests of high art dismiss anything that is past a certain time period, they merely dismiss most popular stuff and concentrate on a rather narrow academic, obscure range of things, or so it seems.

Indeed.

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Some guy signs a urinal. Such great art.

Shock art and cult of the original. Two for one.

[JuliaL]

I hope you don't mind my asking but are these your work?
Yes or no, they are amazing!
I envy anyone who can show me a young woman spinning, a castle, a staircase with so few strokes. Strokes which, when viewed in isolation are just blobs. Intellectually I think that the artist is taking advantage of my processing network to activate a "castle neuron," but emotionally I just think WOW!

[Jenny A]

Pop music succeeds because it offers enjoyment. That's why people are willing to pay for it. But it's often presented in some kind of opposition to classical music without taking into consideration that classical music was the pop music of it's time.

At least when it comes to Mozart and quite a few others. Yes, Mozart got parts of his money from the imperial court and from wealthy people ordering pieces of music from him. But he also composed for suburbian theatres. Together with Schikaneder he created some of his operas to debut before a popular audience.

And when it comes to literature and performing arts, the list gets even longer. Shakespeare exclusively wrote for ordinary people. Same goes for the German poet and writer Schiller, who introduced revolutionary ideas and criticisms to his work.

Yes. Art is about communication. That doesn't mean just communication with some high browed elite.

[JuliaL]

Yes. Art is about communication. That doesn't mean just communication with some high browed elite.

It does if you want to turn your US$20million into US$60million.
Too bad the artists never get this.

[Jenny A]

Yes, how we define art is a result largely of cliquish opinions, but let's not forget that there are structures in play that determine what is and isn't art. Determining what is and isn't art isn't simply about a visceral emotional reaction, because we can elicit those emotions from things that are not art. Simply because a catchy song gives you the warm-fuzzies does not mean it is on par artistically with one that has been carefully crafted using musical theory. Creating art requires an understanding of the medium and how to manipulate it, and just because you hear a song on the radio that you enjoy, does not mean that the artist has a good understanding on that medium and has applied that understanding well. Similarly just because an author told a story that you enjoyed does not mean that the author carefully crafted their words at an artistic level.

It comes down to how well does the final product demonstrate the understanding of the medium that the artist had.

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In short, he writes as we may talk. I see no additional value in word wanking as some authors do. When we're talking about poetry however, it would be a different matter.

It doesn't necessarily have to be word wanking. Phillip K. Dick is a great example of an author that effectively uses words as art without the wanking. It's about your approach and style, not how well you can use a thesaurus.

Stephen King's approach is very simplistic and straight forward. There's no creativity to it.

I'm likely to like what you like. But not necessarily to define art the way that you do.

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I hope you don't mind my asking but are these your work?
Yes or no, they are amazing!
I envy anyone who can show me a young woman spinning, a castle, a staircase with so few strokes. Strokes which, when viewed in isolation are just blobs. Intellectually I think that the artist is taking advantage of my processing network to activate a "castle neuron," but emotionally I just think WOW!

They are mine.

When I paint I see two ways at once: a simplified whole and lots of abstract little pieces---the simplicity, and, as you say, the blob.

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Yes. Art is about communication. That doesn't mean just communication with some high browed elite.

It does if you want to turn your US$20million into US$60million.
Too bad the artists never get this.

It depends on whether you sell 50 million copies for a dollar, or one copy for a million dollars. So far I've never managed either.

[JuliaL]

They are mine.

When I paint I see two ways at once: a simplified whole and lots of abstract little pieces---the simplicity, and, as you say, the blob.

Wow twice.
I know you think you explained how you do what you do and to you it may seem simple. I think it's magic.
Exceptionally skilled people often think what they do is commonplace. I think it is one of the Dunning-Kruger effects. The highly competent underestimate their competence.
I only see two ways at once when I cross my eyes.