Painting, sculpting, disappearing?

[Belacqua]

Regardless of the technological advances, some techniques are objectively a better display of the human skills? For example, comparing oil paintings to digital art. What illustrations made on Photoshop or Clip Studio compare to the great paintings? 

Interesting questions, and important for the topic at hand. 


I'm sure I've never seen a digitally created work that I'd rank with really wonderful physical art. There are a couple of reasons for this:

First, a non-digital painting is always made of something. The physicality of the material is a major part of what it is. Old time artists knew how to get great beauty out of the physical stuff. 

If you've only seen a painting or sculpture reproduced in a book or on a screen, you still haven't seen it. The real thing will always be more beautiful. This varies of course -- a Hokusai print is about 10 times better than the same picture reproduced in a book. But a Giovanni Bellini painting is a zillion times more beautiful. Oil paint (before we lazy people started just buying it in tubes) is infinitely variable and rich. It can be layered in transparent glazes or built up in ridges that stick up from the canvas, both of which are crucial for the appearance of the work, and both of which are lost in reproduction. The old guys knew things about the materiality of the paint that few people are aware of today.

Both printed books and computer screens homogenize the appearance of a physical object  -- they reduce it to something that's pretty much like every other object reproduced in the same way. This means that when most people look at a painting only in reproduction, they judge it based on a tiny percentage of what it has to offer. 

And we have to remember that each painting or sculpture, until recently, was made for a location and an occasion. Selling art in galleries (which are just stores) is relatively recent. The people making the altarpiece or the hanging scroll or the triumphal portrait knew where it would go and what social function it would fill. Taking it out of that location and putting it in a museum removes a lot of that, and reproducing it in a book or a screen takes it all away. 

Digital art is made to be seen everywhere, which is nowhere. There is no aura, no provenance, no extra-visual value. 

So all of that physicality and occasion is lost in digital art. And that takes away A LOT of what art has been.

Still, there is no hard and fast reason why a digital picture can't do something wonderful. Given the right person and the right inspiration, why not? But here we're back to the role of art and of its value in our current society. The things that people want art to do now are seldom the kind of transcending values that gave former art its importance. 

And I think even artists accept that digital is a lot easier than analogue drawing.

"Easy" is a tricky word with art. There are drawings by Picasso or Matisse, for example, that were easy for them. Ten seconds and it's done, with no apparent effort (the years of practice aren't visible). 

So again, I see no reason why digitally-created work that's just collaged together with click-and-drag couldn't be wonderful. It just hasn't been, so far.

[Ranjr]

Where live and in surrounding towns, there are murals on buildings and in them.  All done by local artists.  All blank walls 20 years ago.  I see an increase in painting.

Sculpting?  I see more metal art.  And of course, chainsaw art.  Much of the old sculpture has been removed from town squares, if you know what I mean.

Shameless plug for a friend.   She's awesome

[arewethereyet]

I think that art is taking different forms these days. That's not to take anything away from the grand masters from centuries ago. Things change. What people like changes, what is available to people changes. We have also been in a time when many people are now having the free time to indulge in their artistic expressions. Working full time and commuting as well as raising families takes up a lot of waking hours. There aren't a lot of places for artists to find patrons who will support them while they work on their paintings or sculptures.

With that said about patrons...it's the wealthy who can indulge in such things and not your average Joe.

I have noticed that more people seem to be getting back to, or entering into artistic hobbies what with having a lot of time quarantined and not having long commutes. From sewing, to woodworking, to making jewelry, etc. There's more to art than paintings and sculptures.

While much of the old art is beautiful, that doesn't mean only the old art is beautiful. And it doesn't mean that inspiration isn't drawn from the old masters.

[Anomalocaris]

I think the greatest value of art to society is not just creativity but the new brought forth by reflection.    Good art helps those who appreciate it develop an additional sense to appreciate the real.     It concerns me that art which embody or promote reflection is displaced by art which merely offers some shallow echo chamber modish escape.

[Belacqua]

This is about literature, rather than painting, but makes a relevant point concerning the arts today.

https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/05/2...h-freedom/

[Neo-Scholastic]

This is about literature, rather than painting, but makes a relevant point concerning the arts today.

https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/05/2...h-freedom/

What I like about the visual arts are the aspects that resist narative...i.e. what cannot be coveyed by words. So, while I find literary analyis interesting, it generally does not evoke in me an aesthetic response...a direct encounter with Beauty. The exceptions that comes to mind are Borges's short stories. But even those do not approach the affect I get from Raeburn portraits or a Matta.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think that’s something everyone appreciates about. Art, which there is more of today, providing that exact experience to, to a wider and more diverse audience…….than ever before in the history of mankind.

Truly amazing, right? Or is it weak sad shitpoop, on account of how Michael Angelo didnt order a slave to mix the paint that an indentured servant applied according to an actual paint by the numbers grid on someone else’s ceiling?

[Neo-Scholastic]

I think that’s something everyone appreciates about. Art, which there is more of today, providing that exact experience to, to a wider and more diverse audience…….than ever before in the history of mankind.

Truly amazing, right? Or is it weak sad shitpoop, on account of how Michael Angelo didnt order a slave to mix the paint that an indentured servant applied according to an actual paint by the numbers grid on someone else’s ceiling?

Not sure what your point is other than to reject romantic notions of solo genius...which no one is doing. Until the modern period (not to be confused with Modernism) the major artists had, at the hieght of their popularity had lots of workers from various stations in life. So what?

And, yes, there are many excellent contemporary artists. But I have only ever seen one Od Nierdrum paintin in real life and reproductions do no justice. And that is because making a good oil painting is intensely time consuming.

[The Grand Nudger]

So what need. I think it’s consequential. Especially when we long for the good old days, o recognize that The Greats are artistically composite characters who marketed to a demographic we no longer believe is valid.

Thats the difference between “ art is dead” and “art is better”.

We have more time now, if time is the thing..than ever before, as well. Don’t even get me started on how many more of us have access to oil based paint. Imagine how many greats we’d be familiar with if this had always been the case?

[Belacqua]

What I like about the visual arts are the aspects that resist narative...i.e. what cannot be coveyed by words. 

Yes, very much agreed. There is a kind of direct impact of beauty, unmediated by concepts, which I think the best art has. 

This is not to say it will be equally available to everyone all the time. We are open to different things differently. But gaining access to that beauty doesn't come through analysis or calculation. 

So, while I find literary analyis interesting, it generally does not evoke in me an aesthetic response...a direct encounter with Beauty. The exceptions that comes to mind are Borges's short stories. But even those do not approach the affect I get from Raeburn portraits or a Matta.

I would like to make a distinction between literary analysis and literary beauty. Analysis is school stuff, and the article I linked to is doing that kind of thing. But there is also non-analytical literary beauty, and Borges I think is a perfect example. 

There are some pictures which are good to look at. Not because we gain from them in some tangible way -- they are not educational or morally improving -- but because it is just good to see them. Looking at them is an end in itself. 

Likewise, there is some music which is just good to hear. 

And I would suggest that there are some concepts or sentences which it is just good to think. Holding them in the mind is a pleasure and an end in itself. These generally come to us through literature, and Borges is perhaps particularly aware of this as a goal. But it's in pretty much every great book, I think. 

Aristotle says that the best thing in any life, and the end point of all our striving, is to contemplate certain good concepts. This is pretty close to what I think about art, although I can't go along with him on which concepts it is best to hold in one's mind. (Though this may be a failure on my part, rather than an error on his.)