Modern "Art" (was: Re: Kant is a Man
V-X
>Okay...I'll throw in my $.02.
>In theory, art *should* be subjective. What we like or don't
>like is, indeed, a matter of opinion. Aesthetics affect us
>each in different ways.
Unfortunately, this theory allows "Family Matters" into the definition of art.
'Nuff said.
>However, subjectivity breaks down after a while. Does this
>mean that any dolt who nails a toilet to the wall and calls it
>art can be considered an artist? Personally, I have trouble
>with that.
I do too, but it really isn't as common as the Brian Yoders of this world
would have you believe, and the rare dolt who manages to pull the wool over a
bunch of people's eyes is usually hotly contested by at least as many critics
and artists, if not more. (See: Julian Schnabel. If I spelled his name
wrong, who cares. The man's an idiot.)
I have trouble with many pieces of Pop art,
>consisting of giant squares of color.
I suspect that you are mixing genres and movements, because I don't know of
any Pop Art that consists of giant squares of color. It sounds like you are
describing something by Mondrian or maybe one of the abstract
expressionists, like Ad Reinhardt or Rothko or Barnett Newman.
I study them and study
>them and *honestly*, the only skill that it takes to execute
>one of those pieces is the ability to paint a straight line
>(which is completely unnecessary itself if you have masking
>tape).
And they did.
I have problems with photo-realism. I admire the
>skill, but don't see the point. I have trouble with Andy
>Warhol, with his studio full of *other* people silk screening
>photographs and calling them art. His art.
So do I.
>I don't like Pollack.
So do I.
>I love Van Gogh.
So do I.
>I'm an artist myself...and I can say with very little doubt
>that I am a *lousy* painter.
So am I.
However, I'm also a very good
>illustrator.
So am I.
I'm handy with pen and ink, colored pencil and
>Prismacolor Markers.
Prismacolors are just great, aren't they, and if you use them on the right
paper stock, you can make them "eat" each other in really amazing ways. I
love Prismacolors...
V-X can draw like nobody's business. Resume and examples available at
http://www.teleport.com/~vx
Home of the Unofficial WWW/FTP Jack Chick Archive!
Stupid Internet...
Jennifer Wise
In theory, art *should* be subjective. What we like or don't
like is, indeed, a matter of opinion. Aesthetics affect us
each in different ways.
However, subjectivity breaks down after a while. Does this
mean that any dolt who nails a toilet to the wall and calls it
art can be considered an artist? Personally, I have trouble
with that. I have trouble with many pieces of Pop art,
consisting of giant squares of color. I study them and study
them and *honestly*, the only skill that it takes to execute
one of those pieces is the ability to paint a straight line
(which is completely unnecessary itself if you have masking
tape). I have problems with photo-realism. I admire the
skill, but don't see the point. I have trouble with Andy
Warhol, with his studio full of *other* people silk screening
photographs and calling them art. His art.
I don't like Pollack.
I love Van Gogh.
So can art be *completely* subjective? Moreover, *should* it?
Doesn't the practise of calling any person with a paint brush
devalue those people who truly have talent? But then, who's to
say *who* has talent? AIEEEEEEE!!!!!
I'm an artist myself...and I can say with very little doubt
that I am a *lousy* painter. However, I'm also a very good
illustrator. I'm handy with pen and ink, colored pencil and
Prismacolor Markers. I draw hoping that other people will take
pleasure from what I've drawn. I don't *want* everything I do
to be considered art. I honestly want to know what people
consider good or bad. I reserve final opinion for myself, of
course, as this is *one* area of my life where I do have some
degree of confidence.
So I suppose that while I feel that art should remain
subjective and that each man/woman's opinion has value, I can't
help but draw the line somewhere. Which either makes my human
or a hypocrite.
Jenny
Nicole Barr
>(Brian K. Yoder) writes:
> >Alex Vigdor <avi...@zNET.com>
> Indeed they did. Their "explorations" would be identical in nature to someone
"exploring" transportation without movement, nutrition
without food, sleeping without rest. Representation of something is
the whole purpose for art. I don't mean that necessarily in the gross
"This is a picture of a rabbit." sense, but if art doesn't convey
something it is missing the very thing that makes it art.<
But Brian, that is what you are saying. It would appear that you
think art is only VALID if you like it. Just because you don't get anything
from it does not make it worthless to the rest of the human
race! I'll be honest with you: I generally do not care for Pollock and that
whole school of 50's abstract artists. This does not mean that I feel I have
the right to say that they were worthless. They absolutely set the stage for
what occurred in the 60s - Warhol, Lichtenstein, Stella, etc. All of this was
as much political commentary as it was art.
>...funny how this is exactly the area where the
modern "artists" have decided to put identifiable objects...where
they don't serve a purpose in the conveyance of an idea.
So tell me, what great discoveries did these "explorers" make? Did they find
something useful? Noble? Beautiful? Or did they just
snooker the taxpayers and a few gullible collectors out of a few million
dollars?<
Highly doubtful. "Gullible collectors" would have purchased this
art before it was hugely popular. Show me one person who is sorry
that they "wasted" that investment money on a Frankenthaler, a
Pollock, or a Stella. Once again, I generally do not like this
stuff, but I can talk about it as what it is. Dismissing it with
out knowing anything about where it came from is lazy.
> I am thoroughly "biased". I'm biased toward good art and against bad
or non-art.<
Uh oh. Let me wake Picasso from the dead and tell him that Brian
Yoder says he is worthless. I'm sure he'll change his crazy ways.
> Why should this disqualify me from judging any particular
work? Would you take seriously the recommendations of a car critic who cared
nothing for the act of driving or moving around and saw no
difference between a car that performed exquisitely and one which had no
engine?<
Sigh...Apples and oranges, apples and oranges! Art is not a car.
Art is something you look at and think about and CANNOT be judged
on the same scale as a mechanical object. Granted, mechanical
objects can fall into the realm of art, but certainly not any cars
that I have seen. There really is no adequate comparison.
> "artistic community" and in some cases (like Godward's) into the grave.<
Are you talking about Godward the Pre-Raphaelite painter? Oh, yeah
I guess you are, because you mentioned Alma-Tadema later in your post.
Realistic painting began to suffer because of the popularity of
photography. Part of the strength perceived in the first Modern
art was the fact that "The hand of man" is visible there. It is
so ironic that you use Pre-Raphaelites as an example. This group of artists
were united in a "Brotherhood" to rebel against the Neo-Classicism of the
Ecole Des Beaux Arts. I.E. They felt
repressed. Modern art was also rebelling against someone else's
idea of what art should be. Now you tell me: Who made more of
a statement against academy painting, Picasso or Bougereaux?
> >Part of the beauty of abstract art is that it allows an
artist to really get beneath the surface of communication in
order to express something. < <
> What do they "express" aside from a disdain for meaning and communication by
doing so? <
Communication is the wrong word. I don't know if there is a
right word. They are getting beneath the surface of representation
to express raw emotion, IMHO.
>How does a DeKooning smear or one
of Rothko's smudged squares "express" anything aside from perhaps
artistic helplesness or a slap in the face for the audience
that came to see something good?<
Who is this audience who came to "see something good"? Anyone
attending a DeKooning or Rothko show in their era (50's and 60's)
knew damn well what they were getting into. Anyone attending
an art museum has choice and can just skip the modern wing.
> them more the longer I was near them. I also visit various
museums fairly regularly, and have no choice but to see a lot
of rotten modern stuff.<
No choice? Do you not have feet? Can't you just skip that
wing? Can't you just ignore it?
>Even the Getty Museum has its share
of modernist garbage, and many of the curators there are
embarrased by the fact that they sue most of their space to show
representational art.<
They are? Have you talked to them?
>They even take efforts to downplay some of their more popular representational
pieces both in their exhibition schedule and in their communication with the
press. I say
that if they don't like that sort of thing they should go work
for the LACMA or MOMA and leave the good stuff to the care
of people who like it and will display it (that they kept
Alma-Tadema's "Spring" in the basement out of sight was a crime!).<
Museums try to please those that give them money (or more art).
They also try to represent something of each art movement so
that the experience can be educationally diverse and not biased.
That is all there is to it.
>The way to communicate with someone is not to throw away the
medium, it is to use it expertly to communication whatever you
are trying to convey.<
Yes, expertise is important, we agree there. I just happen
to think that even minimalism communicates something. And
throwing away the medium is indeed a form of communication
- one of rebellion and disdain, but communication.
> Novels without words, songs with no sound, and paintings with no
paint are just petty frauds, not art, just as a house without
walls, a suit with no cloth, or a car without wheels would be a joke.<
What painting has no paint? I know of none. The closest I can
think of are Rauschenbergs plain black or white canvases. Personally,
I think they suck, but they did make the intended statement. And
besides, he did many things I like, so I'll just have to forgive that.
> >As opposed to using language structures, visual structures
or tonal structures that their audience would already have been
familiar with, these artists chose to create their own languages of
expression. < <
> That's simply not so. Rothko's squares for example are not "a new
language" that only the enlightened can see and understand, they are the
imaginary clothing of a naked emperor strutting around the town square.<
While I agree with your statement to some degree, Brian, I do not
deny that Rothko's work is art. Very selfish art based on the artist's own
emotions, but art nonetheless. To be honest, I find much of the art you
disdain (like Pollock) to be selfish in exactly the same way - an outlet for
the artist's angst. And it is not always very interesting agnst. I just
wouldn't suggest pulling it out of museums
or declare it worthless. This period was important in art, and should
be represented. It creates the perspective for everything that
occurred around it in time.
> What impresses me is someone using the tools at hand brilliantly
in order to express himself clearly and powerfully. Are you
saying that someone like Maxfield Parrish who worked meticulously for years on
his paintings and honed his techniques to a fine point didn't
invest himself in his work sufficiently? How can you tell whether
one of those smudgers spent a lot of time perfecting his "smudging"
style or whether he just splattered paint this way and that
and then kissed up to the critics who made him famous?<
In reality, Brian, you cannot just splatter a canvas, call yourself
an artist, and expect to make money. This does not happen.
Pollocks are worth millions of dollars because somebody likes
the talk he is talkin' and is willing to pay for it. If
you don't know Pollock's whole story, his work is
indeed not very interesting. If you know about the artist and
where he is coming from, it becomes more interesting.
>If it doesn't represent SOMETHING then it isn't art. Now, there's
a lot of latitude there, and I don't mean by this that everything
that is art is like a photograph, but it needs to "refer" to SOMETHING other
than itself...<
Of course it represents something. Just because it does not work
for Brian Yoder, does not mean that it has NO MEANING! You are
basically saying that anything that does not represent something
in your own mind is worthless to the rest of the world. THAT is
art snobbery.
> Of course one need not make use of every tool in every
work, and one can combine these in all sorts of new ways, but
to cast them aside as "getting in the way of expression" is like a
mechanic throwing away his tools because they get between him
and the car he is fixing.<
Casting aside the tools of painting was part of the process to
move it forward. Once again, the artists you are lambasting
represented an important part of art history. If you had
studied it, it might explain some things to you. Not that that
would make you like the art ;), it certainly didn't make me
like it. Recognize it's relevance, yes.
My final statement:
I do not like the movement that Pollock and Rothko both
came from. My tastes in painting run towards photo-realism.
Actually, Mark Tansey is my favorite painter. Even photo
realism was a reaction to the abstract art that came before
it, just look at a time line.
Criticizing Modern art as you are is like going
back and saying that WWII should not have happened. It happened,
it was huge (whether you like it or not), it set the stage for
everything that occured after it, and caused us to look
differently upon the what occurred before it. THIS is what
makes historical events have significance. This is what makes
art historical, and therefore of value to a museum.
I guess the problem I have with you is that rather than
freely admitting this is all your opinion, you are suggesting
that even museums see the error of their ways and not show
all their modern art. Perhaps others might like to see it?
By the way, were you rooting for Peter Keating all through
_The Fountainhead_?
See ya around,
Nicole
Brian K. Yoder
>>(Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>Their "explorations" would be identical in nature to someone
>>"exploring" transportation without movement, nutrition
>>without food, sleeping without rest. Representation of something is
>>the whole purpose for art. I don't mean that necessarily in the gross
>>"This is a picture of a rabbit." sense, but if art doesn't convey
>>something it is missing the very thing that makes it art.<
>But Brian, that is what you are saying. It would appear that you
>think art is only VALID if you like it.
No, not at all. There's a lot of art out there that I don't particularly
like, but that I think is art. For example, I'm not especially fond of
impressionist paintings for the most part, but by my estimation most of
them are "art". I'm not sure what you mean by "valid", but if you mean
whether it's art or not, I certainly think that a lot of things I don't like
are art. If you mean by "vaid" that a work is good or bad, I also don't
think that all good art is stuff I like. Just as an example, I used to not
much care for Mahler (and before that Brahms) but now I like both of them
quite a bit. Back when I didn't like them I still said that they were art
and even good art (though I had some questions about Mahler). The bottom
line here is whether I like something, whether I think it is good, and
whether I think it is art are three entirely separate issues.
>Just because you don't get anything
>from it does not make it worthless to the rest of the human
>race!
That's not what my position is.
>I'll be honest with you: I generally do not care for Pollock and that
>whole school of 50's abstract artists. This does not mean that I feel I have
>the right to say that they were worthless. They absolutely set the stage for
>what occurred in the 60s - Warhol, Lichtenstein, Stella, etc. All of this was
>as much political commentary as it was art.
On the contrary, it was almost entirely political commentary and seldom
art (it's hard to be too specific here since we are talking about a fairly
diverse body of work). I have nothing against political commentary, political
cartoons, political stunts, and so on. I just don't think they are art.
I don't think that pretty or stylish abstract designs are bad either, but
I don't think they are art.
>>...funny how this is exactly the area where the
>>modern "artists" have decided to put identifiable objects...where
>>they don't serve a purpose in the conveyance of an idea.
>>So tell me, what great discoveries did these "explorers" make? Did they find
>>something useful? Noble? Beautiful? Or did they just
>>snooker the taxpayers and a few gullible collectors out of a few million
>>dollars?
>Highly doubtful. "Gullible collectors" would have purchased this
>art before it was hugely popular. Show me one person who is sorry
>that they "wasted" that investment money on a Frankenthaler, a
>Pollock, or a Stella. Once again, I generally do not like this
>stuff, but I can talk about it as what it is. Dismissing it with
>out knowing anything about where it came from is lazy.
Who says I don't know where it comes from?
As for the gullability of collectors and taxpayers (a group you conveniently
ignored) , I don't disagree that many people have made a lot of money
collective this junk. A lot of people many money collecting baseball cards
too, but that doesn't make them art. That some creators of ersatz-art
have become righ or that the collectors of their work have doesn't indicate
that there's any artistic value involved.
>> I am thoroughly "biased". I'm biased toward good art and against bad
>>or non-art.
>Uh oh. Let me wake Picasso from the dead and tell him that Brian
>Yoder says he is worthless. I'm sure he'll change his crazy ways.
Actually, we don't have to wake him. Somewhere around here I have a copy
of an interview he gave late in life where he admits that he's a fraud and
that he duped everyone into making him a big deal. I'm trying to find it
so I can type in some of the juicy bits.
>> Why should this disqualify me from judging any particular
>>work? Would you take seriously the recommendations of a car critic who cared
>>nothing for the act of driving or moving around and saw no
>>difference between a car that performed exquisitely and one which had no
>>engine?
>Sigh...Apples and oranges, apples and oranges! Art is not a car.
No kidding. I'll alert the press.
>Art is something you look at and think about and CANNOT be judged
>on the same scale as a mechanical object.
Why not? You seem terribly convinced of this and it is this very anti-
judgement bias which I am objecting to. Art has a purpose and you can
judge art as achieving that purpose well or poorly just as you can
judge a car or a hammer as achieving its own (different) purpose well
or poorly. If you think that art is purposeless, then I have to ask whether
you think that it is good or worthwhile and why. If it is truly purposeless
then it must therefore be truly worthless.
>Granted, mechanical
>objects can fall into the realm of art, but certainly not any cars
>that I have seen. There really is no adequate comparison.
As I said, what they share is that both are products of human action which
exist to serve some purpose. I can judge cars in accorance with their
purpose just as I can art. Of course the purposes are different, but that's
the way analogies are. They are the same in some ways and different in others
and you can use them to demonstrate the nature of the similarities. Do you
not get that? Or are you just trying to get us off the subject?
>> "artistic community" and in some cases (like Godward's) into the grave.<
>Are you talking about Godward the Pre-Raphaelite painter? Oh, yeah
>I guess you are, because you mentioned Alma-Tadema later in your post.
Yup. That's the guy.
>Realistic painting began to suffer because of the popularity of
>photography.
I absolutely disagree. If you look at what was happening in all of the
arts around that time from painting to sculpture to literature to music
the same kinds of nonsense were peing perpetrated. Do you have an explanation
for why at the same time paintings started becoming fragmented, pointless,
obscure and ugly the same kinds of pointless and ugly characteristics showed
up in music, sculpture, and literature (thugh in literature to a somewhat
lesser degree)? I don't think that photography had anything to do with it.
In fact, if people think that what painting and photography are up to is the
same thing, they have no idea what art is for.
>Part of the strength perceived in the first Modern
>art was the fact that "The hand of man" is visible there.
They must have had a pretty low estimation of what the "hand of man"
is capable of then.
>It is
>so ironic that you use Pre-Raphaelites as an example. This group of artists
>were united in a "Brotherhood" to rebel against the Neo-Classicism of the
>Ecole Des Beaux Arts. I.E. They felt
>repressed. Modern art was also rebelling against someone else's
>idea of what art should be. Now you tell me: Who made more of
>a statement against academy painting, Picasso or Bougereaux?
I think you are mis-classifying me as some kind of traditionalist or something.
I don't think that the proper measure of the value of an art work is whether
it is or isn't "a statement against academy painting". The academics were
wrong too. Did you think I was taking their side merely because they were
shocked by the Picassos of the world too? In answer to your question,
Picasso probably did more to destroy art in general (including some flawed
art as well as good) than anyone else. Please excuse me if I don't
applaud him for doing so. I think Bougereaux was an infinitely better
artist than Picasso and did more for the promotion of the better principles
of art than Picasso ever thought of.
>>Part of the beauty of abstract art is that it allows an
>>artist to really get beneath the surface of communication in
>>order to express something.
>> What do they "express" aside from a disdain for meaning and communication by
>>doing so?
>Communication is the wrong word. I don't know if there is a
>right word. They are getting beneath the surface of representation
>to express raw emotion, IMHO.
First of all, I don't see how you can "get beneath" the means by which you
are using and accomplish anything useful. Representation is the MEANS of
communication in art. Getting "beyond" that merely means that you aren't
doing art anymore. As for the value of "raw" emotion, I don't know exactly
what you mean by it and why you think it's so great. How does it differ from
the "unraw emotion" one gets when looking at a Maxfield Parrish painting
or listening to a Tchaikovsky symphony? What makes it any "better" than
those? I'll tell you, it means that people can get to pretend to be
able to see the emperor's clothes and be superior to those with such unrefined
tastes as to not see why Rothko's squares are so terribly wonderful. In
other words, it is the very obscurity and lack of communication and clarity
that makes the "popular" (which they are not).
>>How does a DeKooning smear or one
>>of Rothko's smudged squares "express" anything aside from perhaps
>>artistic helplesness or a slap in the face for the audience
>>that came to see something good?
>Who is this audience who came to "see something good"? Anyone
>attending a DeKooning or Rothko show in their era (50's and 60's)
>knew damn well what they were getting into.
That's not who I am talking about. What about the folks who are out there
(like me) looking for good art? The people who want to see something good
when they go to a museum, maybe even something good that isn't 100 years old?
When I got to a public museum I see the good stuff stuffed into a back
room somewhere and I have to walk past loads of junk in the process. When
I go to a private museum with a somewhat better attitude I still see some
amount of intentionally bad slap-in-the-face kinds of paintings and
sculpture.
>Anyone attending
>an art museum has choice and can just skip the modern wing.
They do? When was the last time you went to an art museum? They plant the
worst stuff right where you HAVE to walk past it to get anywhere.
>> them more the longer I was near them. I also visit various
>>museums fairly regularly, and have no choice but to see a lot
>>of rotten modern stuff.
>No choice? Do you not have feet? Can't you just skip that
>wing? Can't you just ignore it?
No, they put the bad stuff in places where you have no choice to
avoid it. For example, last year I was at the Boston museum and right there
at the entrance was a huge inflated plastic stylized skull smeared with brown
paint. In order to get to the exhibition of renaissance art I was there to see
I had to walk through a lot of galleries of modernist junk too. Afterward
I went to the museum store and the Norwegian friend who was with me at the
time noticed several prints of a Maxfield Parrish painting he had never seen
before which indicated that this painting was part of the museum's
collection. (My friend is an artist himself, by the way.) We looked high and
low in the museum and couldn't find it (though we saw lots of things both
good and bad, art, and non art). Eventually, we asked the guy at the
information booth where that painting was and he said that it was in the
basement. He said that people ask about it all the time (curiously, this
was the same thing I heard from a curator at the Getty about Tadema's
"Spring" being the basement). I wonder why they like those better than
the latest rendition of "Hollywood Under Glass"?
>>Even the Getty Museum has its share
>>of modernist garbage, and many of the curators there are
>>embarrased by the fact that they use most of their space to show
>>representational art.
>They are? Have you talked to them?
Of course I have.
>>The way to communicate with someone is not to throw away the
>>medium, it is to use it expertly to communication whatever you
>>are trying to convey.
>Yes, expertise is important, we agree there. I just happen
>to think that even minimalism communicates something. And
>throwing away the medium is indeed a form of communication
> - one of rebellion and disdain, but communication.
It certainly is. It is also a message that is trivial and stupid.
I can get that message from any baby throwing a tantrum (and more
eloqently too). Why should I care if some "artist" is inarticulately
enraged at the universe? Why should I go look at hundreds or thousands
of paintings and sculptures all expressing the same kind of inarticulate
rebellion and disdain?
>>>As opposed to using language structures, visual structures
>>>or tonal structures that their audience would already have been
>>>familiar with, these artists chose to create their own languages of
>>>expression.
>> That's simply not so. Rothko's squares for example are not "a new
>>language" that only the enlightened can see and understand, they are the
>>imaginary clothing of a naked emperor strutting around the town square.
>While I agree with your statement to some degree, Brian, I do not
>deny that Rothko's work is art.
Why not? What do you think distinguishes art from non-art? I have no doubt
that your teachers probaby taught you that anything/everything is art and that
it is not your place to judge art as good or bad, but I'm asking you to think
for yourself here, not just tell me what you have been taught.
>Very selfish art based on the artist's own
>emotions, but art nonetheless. To be honest, I find much of the art you
>disdain (like Pollock) to be selfish in exactly the same way - an outlet for
>the artist's angst. And it is not always very interesting agnst. I just
>wouldn't suggest pulling it out of museums
>or declare it worthless.
Why not? If it is not very interesting angst that doesn't mean much to anyone
other than the "artist" then why is it so important to hang on the wall?
Who cares whether people see Rothko's silly angst-ridden squares? That
space COULD be used in order to display something meaningful to someon else
and that might actually be interesting or positive instead of dead pointless
futile disgust.
>This period was important in art, and should
>be represented. It creates the perspective for everything that
>occurred around it in time.
Why is that important? Do you really think it was characteristic of the
time? Were the 1950's a time of inarticulate disgust? Are the 1990's?
I think you are confusing art with art history. I too think that such
things ought to show up in art history text books as being representative
of art of a particular era, but that's no reason to hang it in a museum
today.
>In reality, Brian, you cannot just splatter a canvas, call yourself
>an artist, and expect to make money. This does not happen.
That's quite true. You have to get a college degree and go to cocktail
parties and get people to write magazine articles about your "work". You
also need to get some government grants and perhaps a wealthy patron or two.
Then you can splatter paint on a canvas and it's "art".
>Pollocks are worth millions of dollars because somebody likes
>the talk he is talkin' and is willing to pay for it.
People might pay millions for the pen that signed the Declaration of
Independence too, but that doesn't make it art.
>If
>you don't know Pollock's whole story, his work is
>indeed not very interesting. If you know about the artist and
>where he is coming from, it becomes more interesting.
I know something about him and his "work" (I have read a book or two and
have seen a documentary or two), and I don't find it "interesting" at all
except in the sense that the activities of a criminal, a lunatic, or
a cancer cell are "interesting".
>>If it doesn't represent SOMETHING then it isn't art. Now, there's
>>a lot of latitude there, and I don't mean by this that everything
>>that is art is like a photograph, but it needs to "refer" to SOMETHING other
>>than itself...
>Of course it represents something. Just because it does not work
>for Brian Yoder, does not mean that it has NO MEANING!
That is not what I am saying at all. Are you even reading what I write?
>You are
>basically saying that anything that does not represent something
>in your own mind is worthless to the rest of the world. THAT is
>art snobbery.
No, that is not what I am saying at all. Try again.
>> Of course one need not make use of every tool in every
>>work, and one can combine these in all sorts of new ways, but
>>to cast them aside as "getting in the way of expression" is like a
>>mechanic throwing away his tools because they get between him
>>and the car he is fixing.
>Casting aside the tools of painting was part of the process to
>move it forward.
Why do you call it "forward"? I think it set back the art by about 10,000
years.
>Once again, the artists you are lambasting
>represented an important part of art history.
Well, the Nazis represented an important part of world history too, but that
doesn't mean that I need to present their theory of governent as
a good or valid one.
>If you had
>studied it, it might explain some things to you. Not that that
>would make you like the art ;), it certainly didn't make me
>like it. Recognize it's relevance, yes.
What makes you think I have not studied that (or this?) period?
>My final statement:
>I do not like the movement that Pollock and Rothko both
>came from. My tastes in painting run towards photo-realism.
>Actually, Mark Tansey is my favorite painter. Even photo
>realism was a reaction to the abstract art that came before
>it, just look at a time line.
Sure. So? Are we talking about art or art history? Or do you think they
are the same thing? The name Tansey doesn't sound familiar to me. What
has he done that I might recall?
>Criticizing Modern art as you are is like going
>back and saying that WWII should not have happened.
Why so? If I said "I think WWII was a big disaster and had terrible
results and we shouldn't do such things again." would you disagree?
Would you say "You can't say that WWII was better or worse than a sunny day
in the park."? Would you say "I think we should have WWII in every city in
the country every day for all the little children to participate in."?
>It happened,
>it was huge (whether you like it or not), it set the stage for
>everything that occured after it, and caused us to look
>differently upon the what occurred before it. THIS is what
>makes historical events have significance. This is what makes
>art historical, and therefore of value to a museum.
You are apparently trying to make a case for erasing the distinction
between art and art history. I see the two as being entirely different.
If you would like to make a case for them being the same thing please
be my guest.
>I guess the problem I have with you is that rather than
>freely admitting this is all your opinion, you are suggesting
>that even museums see the error of their ways and not show
>all their modern art. Perhaps others might like to see it?
Oh come on. The general public HATES modern art. Look at the way
symphonies design their programs. They know that the public will come
to hear Beethoven, Mozart, and Rachmaninoff and that they'll never show up
to hear some modernist, so they organize the programs (just as they do at
museums) so that in order to get at the good stuff you have to put up with
the atonal non-melodic garbage.
>By the way, were you rooting for Peter Keating all through
>_The Fountainhead_?
If you are implying that I am advocating traditionalism, you have not
been reading very closely. Just as in the political discussions here,
the traditional opposition of traditionalism vs. nihilism does not
exhaust the universe of alternatives. Do you think that Howard Roark
was just being an anti-traditionalism?
--Brian
--
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
| Brian K. Yoder | "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human |
| byo...@netcom.com| freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the |
| US Networx, Inc. | creed of slaves." -- William Pitt |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
V-X
>> I'm handy with pen and ink, colored pencil and
>> >Prismacolor Markers.
>>
>> Prismacolors are just great, aren't they, and if you use them on the right
>> paper stock, you can make them "eat" each other in really amazing ways. I
>> love Prismacolors...
>
>YES!!! Prismacolors are the life's blood of my psychedelic
>insomnia dragons...I adore them.
>VX, might I add that I'm enjoying having a civil conversation
>with you. I'm bloody tired of tempers, including my own.
I should play with my Prismacolors again. I haven't really *drawn* drawn in
about a year--I've been doing nothing but stuff on the computer. I've
completely lost my confidence...
I think I'm going to start life drawing sessions again this week.
And yes, it is very nice to have a regular conversation with you, instead of a
war.
Timothy Burke
Yoder) wrote:
> On the contrary, it was almost entirely political commentary and seldom
> art (it's hard to be too specific here since we are talking about a fairly
> diverse body of work). I have nothing against political commentary, political
> cartoons, political stunts, and so on. I just don't think they are art.
> I don't think that pretty or stylish abstract designs are bad either, but
> I don't think they are art.
Another in a long series of oddly contradictory positions in your view of
"art". Many of the pre-20th Century artworks you profess to value--and
probably musical and literary works as well--were seen in their day as
*political* works--as works that were making general social commentary as
well as veiled reference to the fortunes and virtues of specific powerful
political figures. If we no longer read "Macbeth" as a commentary on
Elizabethean politics or see artwork from the Italian Renaissance as
remarking on Italianate family politics, it's because (*gasp*)
interpretations of art change over time, because there isn't some
self-evident "true" interpretation of a given work of culture which
consistently reveals itself to all humans across all times.
Brian K. Yoder
>In article <byoderD4...@netcom.com>, byo...@netcom.com (Brian K.
>Yoder) wrote:
>>On the contrary, it was almost entirely political commentary and seldom
>>art (it's hard to be too specific here since we are talking about a fairly
>>diverse body of work). I have nothing against political commentary, political
>>cartoons, political stunts, and so on. I just don't think they are art.
>>I don't think that pretty or stylish abstract designs are bad either, but
>>I don't think they are art.
>Another in a long series of oddly contradictory positions in your view of
>"art". Many of the pre-20th Century artworks you profess to value--and
>probably musical and literary works as well--were seen in their day as
>*political* works--as works that were making general social commentary as
>well as veiled reference to the fortunes and virtues of specific powerful
>political figures.
How does that contradict what I said? There's no problem with a work of art
containing or expressing some particular political or social viewpoint.
It's just that not everything that expresses a social or political opinion
is a work of art.
>If we no longer read "Macbeth" as a commentary on
>Elizabethean politics or see artwork from the Italian Renaissance as
>remarking on Italianate family politics, it's because (*gasp*)
>interpretations of art change over time,
I have no doubt that they do. The question is whether there is an objective
source of the meaning being infered and that there are right answers and
wrong ones in interpreting the meaning of a work or whether it's all
arbitrary and made up on the basis of... Well, of nothing. I think that
when an artist writes a play or paints a painting he actually says something
and that your analysis of it can be right or wrong depending on how well it
conforms to that meaning. You aren't one of those deconstructionists are you?
By analogy, if you and a few other people look at a dog and one says "It's
a watchdog." another says "It's a German Shepherd." and a third says "It's
a doggie.", they are merely looking at different aspects of the same thing,
and if their interpretations are accurate (ie. it really does bite intruders,
belong to that breed, or whatever) then all are correct in a way that "It's
a cat." or "There's no animal here." or "There's no such thing as a dog."
are not.
>because there isn't some
>self-evident "true" interpretation of a given work of culture which
>consistently reveals itself to all humans across all times.
I have no doubt that over time more or less people will look at a work
from this or that point of view, but are you saying that there's no
anchor of meaning in the work itself and that it's all up for grabs?
Are you talking about differences in interpretation like "Watchdog vs.
German Shepherd" in my analogy or like "Dog vs. Cat"?
Jennifer Wise
> In article <D4vHq...@Virginia.EDU> jw...@Virginia.EDU (Jennifer Wise) writes:
> >Okay...I'll throw in my $.02.
>
> >In theory, art *should* be subjective. What we like or don't
> >like is, indeed, a matter of opinion. Aesthetics affect us
> >each in different ways.
>
> Unfortunately, this theory allows "Family Matters" into the definition of art.
> 'Nuff said.
Ditto.
> I do too, but it really isn't as common as the Brian Yoders of this world
> would have you believe, and the rare dolt who manages to pull the wool over a
> bunch of people's eyes is usually hotly contested by at least as many critics
> and artists, if not more. (See: Julian Schnabel. If I spelled his name
> wrong, who cares. The man's an idiot.)
Who's the NY artist who doesn't do any of his paintings at
all? I saw him interviewed last year and apparently he pays
rooms full of people to paint, then signs his name on the
pieces he approves. His attitude is, "Hey, at least I'm being
upfront about it. No one else up here is."
Scary, but he's made a fortune.
> I have trouble with many pieces of Pop art,
> >consisting of giant squares of color.
>
> I suspect that you are mixing genres and movements, because I don't know of
> any Pop Art that consists of giant squares of color. It sounds like you are
> describing something by Mondrian or maybe one of the abstract
> expressionists, like Ad Reinhardt or Rothko or Barnett Newman.
Then the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is confusing them too,
because my rant against squares came to a peak last year at a
Pop Art show at said museum, at which time my friend Steve and
I nearly sat on a sculpture, thinking it was a bench.
(I think you're right, though...it *is* abstract expressionism)
> >I love Van Gogh.
>
> So do I.
Then you've got to be okay. :)
> >I'm an artist myself...and I can say with very little doubt
> >that I am a *lousy* painter.
>
> So am I.
Brother....
> I'm handy with pen and ink, colored pencil and
> >Prismacolor Markers.
>
> Prismacolors are just great, aren't they, and if you use them on the right
> paper stock, you can make them "eat" each other in really amazing ways. I
> love Prismacolors...
YES!!! Prismacolors are the life's blood of my psychedelic
insomnia dragons...I adore them.
VX, might I add that I'm enjoying having a civil conversation
with you. I'm bloody tired of tempers, including my own.
Jenny
Timothy Kordas
> consisting of giant squares of color. I study them and study
> them and *honestly*, the only skill that it takes to execute
> one of those pieces is the ability to paint a straight line
> (which is completely unnecessary itself if you have masking
> tape). I have problems with photo-realism. I admire the
> skill, but don't see the point. I have trouble with Andy
> Warhol, with his studio full of *other* people silk screening
> photographs and calling them art. His art.
I'm interested in this view...what you are saying (just making sure
I get this right) is that you view the technical skill required to
execute a particular piece as an integral part of the piece ?
regarding photography...I've had a long series of discussions with
a friend of mine (who is a painter) - we've pretty much agreed that
art (hehe...look I'm trying to define the undefineable) is necessarily
representational...and that photography's goal often is to present as
technically complete and realistic a view of a particular scene as possible
(where the limit on the possible is a technological one)...which means
that photography CAN be art (his original position was that it couldn't)
in the same subjective sense that a painting isn't NECESSARILY art.
[I don't have a point here, just was making an observation]
> So I suppose that while I feel that art should remain
> subjective and that each man/woman's opinion has value, I can't
> help but draw the line somewhere. Which either makes my human
> or a hypocrite.
hehe...are those two mutually exclusive ? :-)
-Tim <- Snob, hypocrite, human
--
Timothy J. Kordas
http://bambi.eeap.cwru.edu/tjk/tim.html
Jennifer Wise
> In article <D50zx...@Virginia.EDU> jw...@Virginia.EDU (Jennifer Wise) writes:
> >YES!!! Prismacolors are the life's blood of my psychedelic
> >insomnia dragons...I adore them.
>
> >VX, might I add that I'm enjoying having a civil conversation
> >with you. I'm bloody tired of tempers, including my own.
>
> I should play with my Prismacolors again. I haven't really *drawn* drawn in
> about a year--I've been doing nothing but stuff on the computer. I've
> completely lost my confidence...
Do it. I tend to feel that same hesitancy when I've been away
from the drawing board for too long. It's hard to pull out the
creative energy when you've *already* worked 8 to 5, you know?
Anyhow, you haven't lost anything...it doesn't go away. Hang
onto the confidence. :)
> I think I'm going to start life drawing sessions again this week.
Again, do it!
Jenny
Jennifer Wise
> Jennifer Wise (jw...@Virginia.EDU) wrote:
>
> > consisting of giant squares of color. I study them and study
> > them and *honestly*, the only skill that it takes to execute
> > one of those pieces is the ability to paint a straight line
> > (which is completely unnecessary itself if you have masking
> > tape). I have problems with photo-realism. I admire the
> > skill, but don't see the point. I have trouble with Andy
> > Warhol, with his studio full of *other* people silk screening
> > photographs and calling them art. His art.
>
> I'm interested in this view...what you are saying (just making sure
> I get this right) is that you view the technical skill required to
> execute a particular piece as an integral part of the piece ?
Yup...although to say it's the *only* integral part of the
piece would be false! :)
> regarding photography...I've had a long series of discussions with
> a friend of mine (who is a painter) - we've pretty much agreed that
> art (hehe...look I'm trying to define the undefineable) is necessarily
> representational...and that photography's goal often is to present as
> technically complete and realistic a view of a particular scene as possible
> (where the limit on the possible is a technological one)...which means
> that photography CAN be art (his original position was that it couldn't)
> in the same subjective sense that a painting isn't NECESSARILY art.
My sister is a photographer. Perhaps I'm biased, but I
definately consider photography to be art. Some forms of
photography have as their objective the knack of presenting a
realistic view of a particular scene. However, there's also
the idealogy of taking a photo from a unique point of view...a
more "artistic" point of view, if you will.
> [I don't have a point here, just was making an observation]
Sure...nothing's a given. Art, when you get down to it, is a
matter of opinion.
> > So I suppose that while I feel that art should remain
> > subjective and that each man/woman's opinion has value, I can't
> > help but draw the line somewhere. Which either makes my human
> > or a hypocrite.
>
> hehe...are those two mutually exclusive ? :-)
Not really....:)
Jenny
coates
: > consisting of giant squares of color. I study them and study
: > them and *honestly*, the only skill that it takes to execute
: > one of those pieces is the ability to paint a straight line
: > (which is completely unnecessary itself if you have masking
: > tape). I have problems with photo-realism. I admire the
: > skill, but don't see the point. I have trouble with Andy
: > Warhol, with his studio full of *other* people silk screening
: > photographs and calling them art. His art.
: I'm interested in this view...what you are saying (just making sure
: I get this right) is that you view the technical skill required to
: execute a particular piece as an integral part of the piece ?
An excellent question. A major part of making "art," it seems to me, is
(can be) choosing what to present, and how, and when. A second major part
is (can be) executing those decisions. The first aspect is in part social
and in part aesthetic; the second is in part technical and in part
aesthetic. Choosing what to present is "social" because the meaning and
impact of a given piece of art depends upon its historical situation: the
ability to enjoy fully Medieval art, for example, requires an appreciation
of what is depicted and why. This is why (some) art can lose/gain
significance with time. (The historical significance of technique is also
important in other, more recently developed and still developing media
like computer graphics.)
A hypothesis: the work of someone like Andy Warhol will age more quickly
than the work of someone like Monet or even Picasso, because the
techniques by the latter are an independent and less historically
dependent basis for the creation of art, while the choices of what to
present by the former had their greatest impact at the time they were
presented -- Warhol satirizing the idealization of consumer culture in
mid-century US (and idea that is commonplace now).
--
john coates For Human beauty knows it not: nor can Mercy find it!
coates
: I meant "destroyed" in the sense that artists and art critics and art
: institutes and so on don't generally produce the kind of good stuff that
: existed before the modern period.
I think this is a crucial point. Artists have been taught to think of
themselves as people who should bring at least *something* new to the
table. Hence, few would accept simply producing the kind of stuff
previously produced. At a minimum, the work would have to acknowledge in
some way that what they were producing was derivative. In fact, the two
most recent Whitney Bienniels, which showcase new artists, had numerous
examples of "classical" work, realistic, representational and tame, all
framed in something indicating adoration or irony or whimsy or
whathaveyou. "Modern" art -- Cubism, AE, minimalism -- are no longer
"modern" -- what is now "modern" is "postmodern" -- and the postmodern
frequently (attempts to) use much more traditional, pre-"modern" styles
and manners.
: Because the musuems are where the art is. Do you think I am likely to find
: a masterpiece looking somewhere else? "Look everyone, I found a great work of
: art at the bottom of my sock drawer. I wonder how it got here? And to think!
: I had been looking for good art in museums!"
You're not being very entrepreneurial, here, Brian. Art museums are a
fairly recent invention; prior to 1900, art was displayed and seen in
other places; there is no reason to suppose that museums are or will be
the end-all of great art. Museums attempt to collect the best, over
time, but they compete with rich individuals, corporations, even law
firms. The NY law firm of Fried Frank has one of the best post-WWII
collections of art in the world; MOMA curators-in-training are required
to visit. At worst, museums only come to house what used to be the best;
what is the best being done today is far more likely to be found in
galleries, one-time showings, multimedia events, bars, coffeehouses,
restaurants, etc., etc.
John McCoy
: In article <3jniu9$7...@news.bu.edu>, jmc...@bu.edu (John McCoy) writes:
: > The first wave of Pop Art (Rauschenberg, Johns, etc.) was more of a
: > reaction to A.E. than it was a political statement. The second wave
: > (Warhol, Lichtenstein, etc.) was a celebration of consumer culture
: > and might be seen as a political statement, albeit not a particularly
: > deep one.
: Not really political. Modernism has a distinct in-crowd feeling to it.
: You had to be in the club to get the joke.
Some would argue that Pop marks the borderline between Modernism and
Post-Modernism. Of course, anyone can make up a theory.
: [...]
: > (Aside to Jennifer's earlier post):
: That wasn't Jennifer, that was me ;)
Oops. Sorry, Jennifer.
: [...]
: I could not find dates anywhere (at home) for Bouguereau. Dates
: please? For some reason, he is absent from several texts that
: I have. Sorry if I misplaced him, but my curiousity needs the
: answer.
Bouguereau, William Adolphe, 1825-1905.
The best source of biographical information and reproductions is the 1984
Catalogue for the exhibition at the Musee du Petit-Palais, Paris, which
traveled to Montreal and Hartford. If your library doesn't have it, the
bibliographic info is: William Bouguereau, 1825-1905 : Musee du
Petit-Palais, Paris, 9 February-6 May 1984, the Montreal Museum of
Fine Arts, 22 June-23 September 1984, the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, 27
October 1984-13 January 1985. [Montreal] : Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, [1984]
(I did a paper on Bouguereau and his critics for my 19th century grad
seminar.)
--John
John McCoy
: > As for the Abstract Expressionists, I think it is a mistake to characterise
: >their work as having poitical content. Some have speculated that a move
: >towards introspection and abstraction is a result of coming through war
: >(and the usually point to De Stijl as the WWI counterpart to Abstract
: >Expressionism). Pollock saw his work as an intuitive exploration of
: >subconscious processes,
: Yeah right. What processes might those be? What did his "art" tell us
: about his subsonscious? Why should we care even if it did?
I'm no big fan of Abstract Expressionism myself, but...
Pollock's approach to plumbing his unconscious was to lay an unstretched
canvas on the floor. After watching it a while and deciding on a mood
for his work, he began to pace back and forth, both around and
over the canvas. He would mix several cans of paint so they were very
liquid and dip brushes or stir sticks into them, and then with rhythmic
motions sometimes allow the paint to drip, sometimes fling or smear the
paint forcefully. If you look closely at the overlapping lines and
blotches on a Pollock you will see that each color has a calligraphic
quality uniquely its own; the white may be thin and drizzled, the brown
may be sharp and splattered. The cumulative effect is one of depth and
texture. In this way the marks recorded his "performance," and
Pollock's temporal activities were frozen into a "timeless" work.
: My Vague-o-meter is pegged.
I don't blame you. How you react to this work is largely determined
by your own values. In my case, I often have a problem with Pollock
simply because of the macho posturing of his public personna. He
thought that his work was shamanistic and that it afforded him a
place of priviledge. But then, artists have been making these sorts of
claims since the Rennaisance.
At his best, I do find Pollock to be lyrical and hypnotic. I have to
be in the right mood.
: [...]
: >Rothko, like Mondrian and Kandinsky before him, saw
: >abstraction as a way to communicate a spiritual experience.
: Ahh, the much praised but never defined or described "spiritual experience".
: The Vague-o-Meter is still pegged.
Things get complicated when discussing Rothko, more complicated with
Mondrian and Kandinsky. They all believed in a psychology of color, with
Kandinsky having perhaps the most elaborate and strangely programatic
approach. If anyone really cares we can start another thread to go into
this.
: >Maybe the
: >only A.E. who took on political material was Robert Motherwell in his many
: >paintings about the Spanish Civil War. It was critics like Clement
: >Greenberg who gave A.E. its political connotations by calling it a
: >uniquely American art form and supported wordwide exhibitions to
: >show other countries the fruits of a free society.
: Yeah, right. What's so "american" about it? Sounds more like he was
: trying to dissuade people from adopting such a system in order to avoid
: the ugly and meaningless "art" that might result.
Actually, this was my point: Greenberg had his own agenda and he
shoved A.E. into it. I don't this that Greenberg was right, just
influential. He gets criticized a lot by contemporary art historians
and critics.
: [...]
: The folks who manage
: museums, the folks who teach young artists how to paint, sculpt, and compose
: have all bought into this notion that only the meaningless and ugly are
: really "serious" art. That's what I mean by "destroyed".
This was true about twenty years ago, but not anymore. Many artists
have returned to representational works and more programatic pieces.
Modernism is largely dead; many in the Post-Modern era are troubled
by its dogmatism (when was the last time a school of artists issued
a manefesto?). Unfortunately, much of contemporary art is insincere:
since no one believes in beauty, we have kitsch. Much of it is
ponderous in its political agendas. But there's good stuff out there,
too. Give the museums some time, just now they're all broke and no
one wants to invest in anything until it has proven value retention,
so you won't see many new works in a permanent collection.
: [...]
: >Why rely on museums at all? Why not find what you value elsewhere?
: Because the musuems are where the art is. Do you think I am likely to find
: a masterpiece looking somewhere else? "Look everyone, I found a great work of
: art at the bottom of my sock drawer. I wonder how it got here? And to think!
: I had been looking for good art in museums!"
But the best art of the 20th century isn't hanging anywhere, it was
done for mass reproduction as illustrations, comics, and advertisement.
Everyone can own an "original" Herrimann or Sendak--and I can't think
of better art anywhere.
--John