Your Thoughts On Art

[Angrboda]

I incline towards realism, though I do enjoy other forms. Some would say that this reflects a naive and unsophisticated appreciation of art, but so be it.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I incline towards realism, though I do enjoy other forms.  Some would say that this reflects a naive and unsophisticated appreciation of art, but so be it.

My chief objection to the non-realistic forms of art is the attitude of the artist.  No matter what the medium - music, painting, sculpture, prose - the artist always seems to take the position, 'Well, if you can't grasp what I'm trying to say, it's all on you.'

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

[Alan V]

Sam Harris brought up an interesting thought experiment.
What exactly makes the Mona Lisa so precious and valuable?

If a perfect replica was to hang in its place, would it still have the same impact on its audience who were none the wiser?
Then it's obviously not the actual painting but the notion that it was painted by a renaissance genius?

When I was in high school, I found a decent book on art history in the school library with a beautiful reproduction of the Mona Lisa.  I often picked out that book and studied the painting, much more often than I looked at the other works of art reproduced in it.

So to answer your question:

What makes the Mona Lisa so valuable is that we can immediately recognize another human being looking back at us from across the centuries.  The thoughtfulness and depth of her gaze and half-smile are remarkable, and perhaps could only have been created by a genius with a similar depth of mind.

Some details of the painting are strange, like the lack of eyebrows and the fantastic landscape.  But they only emphasize the difference in the time and place.

The overall effect is idealization of the subject.  Ideal beauty was a Renaissance preoccupation which is arguably best realized in this one painting, so it is an icon from that age.  It therefore remains a symbol of the humanism of that time, which still has meaning today.

A perfect replica would be just as good.  Many people report being disappointed by the actual object since it is smaller than they expected.

May 2nd of this year is the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo.

[Sal]

I would be interested to read forum members' opinions on the fine arts. 

Specifically, what do you think makes great art great? 

Maximum enjoyment.

What artists or specific works are your favorites, and why?

I don't have favorites, but if I had to choose, then the synthwave music of Carpenter Brut atm:

(NSFW)

What artistic movements are the most appealing to you?

Synthwave music atm.

Do you think art is more than a variety of entertainment?

I think there's entertainment that's art, but not all art is entertainment, but there's clearly overlap if you do a Venn diagram of it.

What purposes should art serve?

Ultimately entertainment, IMO. But also a sort of introspection into whatever zeitgeist there is; such as political, otherwise ideological and fashion, for that matter.

[brewer]

Coming of age in the late 60's and 70's, I guess I'm mostly a fan of the psychedelic. 

And Escher, some Dali. There are others.

[arewethereyet]

Since I lack artistic talent that's what interests me. Doesn't matter if it's painting, wood carving, sculpture, or any other form. I tend to be more fascinated with the 'how did they figure out how to do that?' The old classic painters who had to make their own paints to get the colors they wanted...how did they manage to take a block of marble or a collection of metals and turn it into a realistic statue of a man, woman, or other animal. I don't possess that vision.

It may seem cliché but I really like Van Gogh. Starry Night and others from that period are images I really like. I am not sure why. We have a print of Café Terrace at Night in our dining area. We used to have a print of Starry Night up but it got damaged when our house flooded three years ago.

I was in awe of the stained glass windows and the wood carvings in the Basilica I attended when I was growing up. Though I now see the décor of that church as garish - way overdone - I appreciate the talent it took to create the statues, wood carvings, and painting - complete with gold leaf. The church is old so the technology to make those things simple didn't exist. It was hard work and talent that was needed to complete each piece.

[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.

[Belacqua]

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

I'm not interested in the current big-money people. Damian Hirst, Jeff Koons, Murakami Takashi, et.al. They produce objects, but the objects have no intrinsic value in my opinion -- they are more like tokens or place-holders for exchange value. Yayoi Kusama made interesting things decades ago, but it's now just brand goods. Banksy is famous for being "cool," supposedly, but the pictures he makes are of zero interest. 

I do wonder, however, whether it really offers many insights beyond the peculiarities of human psychology and aesthetics -- though illustrations and photographs certainly can.

Well, human psychology and aesthetics are big things. 

And it's not just an individual's psychology, but that of an age or culture. You said of Renaissance art that it was interested in ideal beauty, and this is a feature of the overall thought and values of that age, which is very different from our own. It is valuable to see alternatives to our own limited time. It allows us to see an enormous amount about differences from our time and place, and see that the range of possibilities is much greater. No single object lives in isolation. To know the Mona Lisa is to know the values, philosophy, goals, desires, economies, and beauties of an age which in some way can be a model for our lives. 

Remember the opposite of aesthetics is anesthetics -- unfeeling. And if you believe, more or less, "Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses," then aesthetics is a big deal.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

However, abstract art is rather an acquired taste.

No one has yet been able to adequately explain to me why I should acquire an artistic taste that I don't already have.

Boru

[Alan V]

However, abstract art is rather an acquired taste.

No one has yet been able to adequately explain to me why I should acquire an artistic taste that I don't already have.

Boru

It's similar to music.  Some people enjoy the same genre of music their whole lives, or perhaps just a few different genres.  Others explore a range of aesthetic experiences available from music.

But no, there is no compelling reason, except perhaps to better understand the different tastes and perspectives of other people.