Since the invention of photography
Frank Mauve
reality with paint and brushes. The machines do it
so much better.
Admiring a painter for his photorealistic skills is silly.
It's like admiring the guy who rows across the Atlantic:
brilliant but of no use in the real world. Imagine saying
at a job interview: "I'm really good at rowing boats."
That's why art has turned into a species of philosophy.
Every work of art is a tentative answer to the question
"What is art?"
That's one reason modern art keeps galloping along through
a maze of solutions, trying to find new dead ends.
There's no shortage of chauvie bastards who need naked female
flesh on their walls (unfortunately, today, they are amply
served by centerfold photos), but once we're in theoretical
lala-land, nobody wants to hear the same answer twice.
Theory is a mental joyride, but it also blinds you to the
sensual joys that colors and lines or masses and voids can
convey.
'Kitsch' is the word a theoretician uses of art that doesn't
give him a nice mental workout. Since critics are by definition
theoreticians, a budding artist has no choice but to arm
him/herself with a good line of bullshit to make it past the
hurdles between him/her and the big money collectors (who need
the admiration of the critical gatekeepers, who define the
monetary value of their collections).
Pelysma
"Frank Mauve" <rene...@dlc.fi> wrote in message
news:dbohou$en4$1...@nyytiset.pp.htv.fi...
> it's been pretty pointless to learn how to copy down
> reality with paint and brushes. The machines do it
> so much better.
>
> Admiring a painter for his photorealistic skills is silly.
> It's like admiring the guy who rows across the Atlantic:
> brilliant but of no use in the real world. Imagine saying
> at a job interview: "I'm really good at rowing boats."
>
> That's why art has turned into a species of philosophy.
> Every work of art is a tentative answer to the question
> "What is art?"
>
I hate to worry you, but I have to say I agree one hundred percent with this
post. This has been my belief and understanding of the situation for maybe
three decades, and you've stated it neatly.
--
P.
Frank Mauve
>
> I hate to worry you, but I have to say I agree one hundred percent with this
> post. This has been my belief and understanding of the situation for maybe
> three decades, and you've stated it neatly.
I'm not worried.
With all these years we've spent together here, we were bound to
hit one item we could agree on eventually.
Neither one of us is losing his mind. It's a statistical fluke.
Frank Mauve
>
> I agree with you from a practical stand point, but it is still great
> fun to be able to create realistic looking portraits with paint and
> brushes. At least I like to attempt to when I have the money for the
> supplies.
That's the point: it's still fun, but it's not automatically art
any more.
Rowing is still fun, too, although it's no longer a practical
way of discovering new continents or looting foreign kingdoms.
To make it art, you need to put a bit of thought into it.
Pelysma
"Beau Daft" <john.b...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1122026546.3...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> >it's been pretty pointless to learn how to copy down
> >reality with paint and brushes. The machines do it
> >so much better.
>
>
> I agree with you from a practical stand point, but it is still great
> fun to be able to create realistic looking portraits with paint and
> brushes. At least I like to attempt to when I have the money for the
> supplies.
>
There's another thing, too. A skilled artist can create worlds that
photography doesn't know about. While photographs and computer images may
be among the artist's tools, there is still the opportunity to present a
world that exists only in the artist's -- and then, if successful, in the
viewer's -- mind.
To get to that point, though, the artist must still acquire the skills that
were so valuable in portraiture a couple of centuries ago. For this reason
alone it's still valuable for an artist to study such techniques, and not
just go off on a canvas without some preparation. Picasso, Mondrian, and
others produced abstract canvases that look like a child could have done it,
but first produced many carefully detailed and realistic works. The
abstraction of form and movement from the details of reality was a further
development for them, not a shortcut.
The same things happen in music. It's so easy for a kid to pick up a
guitar, plug it into a nice amp, set a chord and strum, and this remarkable
sound comes out, and the kid says, "hey, I can make music." A year later
he's got a band and an album, but if you ask him to play an E flat minor
scale, good luck. "E flat? The sucker only goes down to E, yeh know."
I started thinking about this in my college years when I was studying
photography. Still on my little shelf of precious books above my desk is
Ansel Adams' The Negative. One reason for his spectacular work is that he
left nothing to chance -- the density of every highlight and shadow of an
8x10 glass negative was calculated before he made the exposure. The tools
are different. It's still art, and art is what?
"artificial."
Made with skill to present the image of what is real. Or could be.
--
P.
bonfils
> Beau Daft wrote:
>>
>> I agree with you from a practical stand point, but it is still great
>> fun to be able to create realistic looking portraits with paint and
>> brushes. At least I like to attempt to when I have the money for the
>> supplies.
>
> That's the point: it's still fun, but it's not automatically art
> any more.
I don't think it ever was.
Mere realism is just craftmanship. The artist uses his skills to distort
reality into a personal view of reality.
And it never *is* reality - it is always just oil on canvas (or whatever
materials you use). Looking at a realistic painting, you're still conscious
of the fact that you're looking at paint, not a slice of nature.
The old, great "realistic" painters were in fact very different: There is
one hell of a difference between Caravaggio and Caspar David Friedrich (to
mention a couple that I like)
> Rowing is still fun, too, although it's no longer a practical
> way of discovering new continents or looting foreign kingdoms.
>
>
> To make it art, you need to put a bit of thought into it.
Yep. Like Zola said: "Art is a corner of nature seen through a temperament."
--
bonfils
http://kim.bonfils.com
"I think if you know what you believe, it makes it a lot easier to answer
questions. I can't answer your question."
- George W. Bush
Frank Mauve
>
> I don't think it ever was.
> Mere realism is just craftmanship. The artist uses his skills to distort
> reality into a personal view of reality.
> And it never *is* reality - it is always just oil on canvas (or whatever
> materials you use). Looking at a realistic painting, you're still conscious
> of the fact that you're looking at paint, not a slice of nature.
>
> The old, great "realistic" painters were in fact very different: There is
> one hell of a difference between Caravaggio and Caspar David Friedrich (to
> mention a couple that I like)
's true. I'm simplifying monstrously.
Caravaggio rules. What I've seen of Friedrich doesn't do it for me.
Velasquez is God.
> Yep. Like Zola said: "Art is a corner of nature seen through a temperament."
Or art is a temperament seasoned with a bit of nature.
Or art is a thought turned into an object.
Or a joke in material form.
Actually quite nice that there are so many ways to choose from.
Frank Mauve
>
> To get to that point, though, the artist must still acquire the skills that
> were so valuable in portraiture a couple of centuries ago. For this reason
> alone it's still valuable for an artist to study such techniques, and not
> just go off on a canvas without some preparation. Picasso, Mondrian, and
> others produced abstract canvases that look like a child could have done it,
> but first produced many carefully detailed and realistic works. The
> abstraction of form and movement from the details of reality was a further
> development for them, not a shortcut.
Um, you know, they said this 'any child could have done it" about Van Gogh
and the impressionists, too. It's a matter of training the eye and the mind
to recognize a masterpiece.
Secondly, Picasso never painted an abstract painting, and although he had
plenty of imitators, very few got even close to his level.
Mondrian was a master at balancing his compositions, and while a child
might be able to build a picture that might fool you, he is actually
quite hard to fake. For one, he did *not* use masking tape for his straight
lines, and those boxes are not arranged at random.
I once saw a fake Miro in a newspaper. Miro built paintings out of blotches
of color, which makes it look very easy. The fake was simply ridiculous.
It taught me just how brilliantly Miro balanced his lines and colors.
His paintings look obvious only until you try to do one yourself.
I'm sorry, but a person who can't tell a Bach cantata from an Abba song
is not an expert on music, and a person who can't tell the difference between
a Picasso and a child's painting has a lot to learn about modern art.
Pelysma
"look like a child could have done it" doesn't mean _I_ think a child could
have done it. I don't think a child could write "Slaughterhouse Five,"
either, although the author, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., took great care to use short
sentences and simple words throughout as a matter of style.
(Of course, occasionally a child turns out to be Mozart, but that's a
separate issue.)
And while Picasso never painted anything completely abstract, he did --
using the word as a verb -- "abstract" geometric forms that he found in the
faces and forms before him, superimposing the background framework of shape
and color and light over the strictly photorealistic image at the expense of
some detail. It took me a long time to start seeing that.
My point is that photography may serve the needs of those wanting
photorealistic images, but that didn't relieve the artist of having to
develop the skills needed to create them. Rather, it freed the artist to
explore other aspects of the image and to create images not found in front
of the lens.
But, yes, it did have a role in creating the whole "what is art?" quandary,
which was your original point, and with which I thoroughly agree.
--
P.
Pelysma
I was about to comment on another wing of the thread that Van Gogh always
painted two things on each canvas: the scene in front of him, and the
turmoil in his head.
--
P.
Frank Mauve
>
> I was about to comment on another wing of the thread that Van Gogh always
> painted two things on each canvas: the scene in front of him, and the
> turmoil in his head.
Every artist does that, even with a camera, no matter how they deny it.
And the monstrous simplification applies to my rude reply to you,
as well. Sorry.
Pelysma
>Sorry.
Quite alright.
We were discussing art, right? discussions of art sometimes include
passionate disagreements, which are part of the fun and should not stand
between the human beings offering their viewpoints.
--
P.
sushi fuckin rules
> "Frank Mauve" <rene...@dlc.fi> wrote in message
> news:dbtae2$tdn$1...@nyytiset.pp.htv.fi...
> > Pelysma wrote:
> > >
<snip snip eroo>
without answering any part of the question i agree with everything here
my contribution to the thread is that it may be clarifying to consider this
question in terms of "competency"
-a competent painter may be able to commit realistic portraitures to canvas,
but "real" painters, like picasso, could do that *and then* commit something to
canvas that the portrait-painters would look at and immediately realize, "wow.
*that* is something different"
--
synt
Frank Mauve
>
> -a competent painter may be able to commit realistic portraitures to canvas,
> but "real" painters, like picasso, could do that *and then* commit something to
> canvas that the portrait-painters would look at and immediately realize, "wow.
> *that* is something different"
Most people look at painting to see what it's about and how well
this content is being conveyed. Most people also hear music as
something that conveys lyrics instead of a structure of sounds
and silences, of rhythm, tone, harmony.
Most art experts see a painting as a composition of lines and colors,
in balance and tension.
They will see a Rembrandt in the same terms as a Mondrian, since the
emotional and story component is secondary to them. They measure
diagonal lines extending from hands to heads, the balance of dark
parts with lighted region, the harmony of the colors, the rhythm of
the brush strokes and lines. Once they've gone through this symphony
of visual impulses, they glance at the contents, the story being told
and weigh whether the painting is in harmony with it:
Look at a Caravaggio. He can paint a sleeping urchin, but the composition,
the wild masses of encroaching shadow and brilliant highlights of flesh
feel like a stormy sea or an oppressive weight straining to crush the
sleeper, tell more about the painter's tormented, fevered personality
than about the child portrayed.
Frank Mauve
>
> my contribution to the thread is that it may be clarifying to consider this
> question in terms of "competency"
>
> -a competent painter may be able to commit realistic portraitures to canvas,
> but "real" painters, like picasso, could do that *and then* commit something to
> canvas that the portrait-painters would look at and immediately realize, "wow.
> *that* is something different"
Laypeople often think that hiding your brush strokes is a sign of skill,
but that's the easiest thing to learn. It's like writing in block letters
to hide your handwriting.
The brush stroke reveals a lot about the painter. It's the hardest thing
to fake, which is why a Salvador Dali painting is easier to forge than a
Van Gogh. Which is one of the reasons a Dali is cheaper than a Van Gogh
or Picasso.
When you look at a Picasso, you see the signs of a massive personality,
a man who doesn't apologize for who he is. His brush strokes are thrown
on the canvas with complete assurance. "It is right like this because I
say so." No wavering doubts in the middle of the line, no attempts to
correct anything. Picasso knows where he is going, what he is saying.
Art lovers see in Dali the pedantry of a cabinet maker. The subject matter
pretends at outrageous courage, but the handwriting is carefully scumbled
to hide the man behind the picture.
raindog
[.......]
> Most art experts see a painting as a composition of lines and colors,
> in balance and tension.
everything i see is thusly analyzed. it's both maddening and fascinating.
synt
that's what i'm saying - you can find plenty of adequate portraits and realistic
landscapes but painting *talent* evokes discussion beyond the accuracy or precision
of the depiction
i think we're in agreement on this one
--
synt