some stupid Picasso
Mani Deli
"When I was their age I could draw like Raphael, but it took me a
lifetime to learn to draw like them."
The jerk thought he could draw like Raphael, can anyone point out any
evidence?
I guess Picasso was stupid enough to believe the yes-men who
surrounded him.
...no skill no art!
Want to get away from the indecipherable imbecilities and absurd pretensions of the modern art establishment?
Check out my web page http://www3.sympatico.ca/manideli/
frankvo...@web.de
wrote:
>When visiting an exhibition of children's drawings, Piscasso remarked:
>"When I was their age I could draw like Raphael, but it took me a
>lifetime to learn to draw like them."
>
>The jerk thought he could draw like Raphael, can anyone point out any
>evidence?
>
Look at his early paintings before 1900, for example "Sitting Girl" or
"Die Taufe" both in 1895. It is not only a little bit like Raphael,
for me it is better than Raphael. Or one could say his paintings are
further developped than those of Raphael. But may be this is a matter
of taste.
keith o'connor (tinmangallery.com
marks the extension of the upper tone register to include the lower in the
creation of form. Botticelli marks the pre Raphael stage of creating form in
the upper registers. But this is all beyond you.
poor mani destiny has jailed you into blindness.
--
take care: Keith
The eye should not be lead where there is nothing to see.
Robert Henri - The Art Spirit
Mani Deli <ma...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:d0cl3vgu6e2fu2s0q...@4ax.com...
Mani Deli
>mani mani mani - your eternal anger prevents you from understanding.
Funny, I don't have to accuse o'connor of anger and a lack of
understanding when he goes off on Bouguereau.
>Raphael
>marks the extension of the upper tone register to include the lower in the
>creation of form. Botticelli marks the pre Raphael stage of creating form in
>the upper registers. But this is all beyond you.
Poor jerk can't write clearly and has to resort to double talk.
>poor mani destiny has jailed you into blindness.>
Write a 5000 word article on destiny.
Chris
"keith o'connor (tinmangallery.com" <scot...@rogers.com> wrote in message
news:kMC_9.523338$F2h1....@news01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
Edward G. Nilges
Picasso completely aced his entrance exams in the 1890s to the very
conservative Madrid academy, and, his father, who was an artist by
avocation, gave up drawing and painting when he realized Pablo's
talent (cf John Berger, THE SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF PICASS0.)
People who claim without evidence that Picasso "could not" draw are
dealing with their own anxieties about their own talent.
Picasso was so able to "draw" in the classical sense that his work was
able to break the rules, in somewhat the same way Bach's chromatic
experiments in Bach's Art of Fugue and Well-Tempered Clavier violate
the "rules" of the classic book of Bach's time on fugue-writing,
written by the otherwise forgotten Johann Jacob Fuchs.
Indeed, Bach demonstrated how the genuine artist takes a rule and
shows it to be a special case of a more general rule when he resolves
a chromatic passage, somewhat in the manner of a mathematician who
shows a previous result only a special case of a more general result.
Drawing in the classical style of Ingres or Raphael was in fact the
result of a secret analysis, by the draughtsman, of the human form
into Euclidean solids. Indeed, by the late 19th century, beginning
artists in the schools sponsored by the official French Salon had to
spend several weeks making carefully shaded drawings in Conte crayon
on a specified form of paper...of cylinders, cones and cubes. Only
then were they permitted to graduate to plaster casts of stock
subjects and the formal study of human anatomy almost at the level of
medical students.
The system was designed to enable mediocrities like Meisonnier and
Bouguereau to, very laboriously, gain an only apparent facility, and
the expectation was that in return, these artists would ideologically
celebrate "French" values in their work, which Meissonnier did by
painting apotheoses of Napoleon, and Bouguereau did by pornography and
pornographic religious art (many an innocent Catholic child, and Yukio
Mishima, got his first erection from the feminized Bouguereau Christ).
The problem for artists including Degas and Picasso was that by the
time they were old enough to apply to the Salon, or Madrid Academy,
they'd already mastered the end result of the laborious process.
Therefore Degas wanted to experiment with, over and above his
pre-existing command of form, color and light, as well as with
actually seeing the true condition of the women in France's "sex
industry" of the 19th century.
Picasso more or less reasoned that the analysis process itself could
be diverted to make something new. Therefore there is a close link in
his analytic Cubist phase between the opening of form into alternative
geometries and the analysis of form pioneered in the Renaissance.
Picasso saw that there could be no "necessary" connection between one
system of representation and reality: in world terms only a tiny
minority of art works have labored to be like photographs in the case
of painting, or replicants in the case of sculpture. Picasso's
insight happened to coincide with the growth of non-Euclidean geometry
which rejected counter-intuitive axioms for the same reason.
What's disturbing today on the Internet is the predominance of yokels,
rubes, psychotics, and artistic Fascists who loudly proclaim, in the
teeth of the evidence, the superiority of the most debased, candy-box
art, and a theory is needed for their existence.
One possibility is the illusion presented by the Windows bitmap or
JPeg file that one is in the presence of the original. My experience
in the Louvre even of the traditional (but quite "modern" for its
time) work of Poussin is that the experience of viewing even a "good"
Jpeg file, and being in the physical presence of art (with its
subliminal appeal to senses other than sight) are completely different
experiences, altogether.
The Internet seems to induce a deep Philistinism in which the
bourgeois with a modem is enticed into a false consciousness in
feeling that the cultural treasures of the world are "accessible" in
the sense they are indeed accessible to the museum-goer.
Bouguereau looks "better" than Picasso, at least to yokels, rubes and
psychotics because Bouguereau took no pleasure in paint. His entire
method was "man versus paint" in which the paint was regarded as
"nature" or as "woman", and it was, for Bouguereau, his manly task to
subdue the paint...somewhat in the same way French Foreign
Legionairres of the time were supposed to subdue "native" up-risings.
But no computer file can do justice to the museum-goer's ability, in
the presence of a work by a man in love with paint, to examine the
work from so many angles and distances that the reflective museum-goer
gets access to the presence of the artist himself.
For example, there is something profoundly moving, in Poussin's
Orpheus and Eurydice in the Louvre, about the painting of Eurydice as
she turns to see the snake that kills her, and as a fisherman is the
only one to witness Eurydice's doom. The brushwork, controlled but
visible, sets up a mysterious relationship between Orpheus' (and the
remainder of the wedding party's) failure to see Euridice, and the
anonymous fisherman, who is almost another Orpheus. The surface
legend kills Eurydice for her failure to "obey" Orpheus later as he
leads her out of Hades, but Poussin, a truly "learned" painter, may
have been able to get under the surface of the legend.
Orpheus is failing to see Euridyce and much later he commands her not
to speak to him: yet in the surface legend, he was supposed to be this
big lover boy. Eurydice's real lover may have been someone else, and
the original legend may have been retold and misread much later than
its original transmission.
Similarly, Guernica and Les Demoiselles d'Avignon have a physical
presence both due to the fact that Picasso as a painter loved paint
and (unlike Bouguereau) was not afraid of the stuff.
And, of course, Internet reproduction completely disregards the
viewer's kinesthetic sense. To appreciate many modern works, even
relatively small works, one has to walk back and forth, and large
works demand more such walking. Internet reproduction reduces large
and small works to the same size and this may be the reason why rubes,
yokels, psychotic basket cases and Philistines normally conclude that
narratives of artistic "difference" are sinister plots, for they do
not "get" the damn difference.
Picasso is not only better than Vargas and Frazetta, who painted for
magazine size: Picasso is not mentionable in the same breath: Vargas
and Frazetta are HACKS. Sorry, Mister Slick, I like your work but you
are wrong on Vargas and Frazetta.
Finally and in this connection, I am reminded of a strange practice in
the art book market of the mid-1960s, one unimaginable today.
Phaidon was at that time a serious publisher of scholarly monographs
on art. The editors of its flagship series of in-depth monographs on
famous artists decided not to use the available techniques of color
reproduction and instead printed high-quality black and white
photographs on good paper.
In a way unimaginable today, this was BOTH a responsible business
decision AND a responsible artistic-historical decision. It was good
business because the editors determined a pre-existing price target
and realized that although certain techniques of color reproduction
were indeed available (the Swiss published Skira was using them) they
would cause the books to exceed the target price set by their market
research. Skira had to use a completely separate printing plant to
get good color quality and "tip" the reproductions onto special pages,
an enormously expensive process.
But note that despite the depth and responsibility of their business
homework, the editors, unlike editors today, did not work under the
lash of market researchers ignorant of subject matter: for the latter
tribe would have forced the editors to downsize the quality of color
reproduction, in all probability, to meet the numbers, not caring that
the final product would have nothing to do with the reproduced art,
and not caring that the saps who bought the book would remain ignorant
of the original. When market researchers of this ilk talk about
"customer focus", after all, they do not mean real customers: they
mean making money from yokels and rubes, and indeed as needed
manufacturing more yokels and more rubes by means of the very product.
Phaidon's editors of the 1960s sent a clear message: if you are really
interested in the art, you have to get on a Boeing 707 and fly to
Paris. Nowadays, yokels, rubes, psychotics and Fascists are gulled
into thinking that they can sit in East Jesus, TX, or Valparaiso, IN,
and be quite cultured, thank you. The resulting phenomenon is known
to post-modern social theorists as "the ruralization of the cities":
for when the yokels visit the metropolis they no longer have any damn
humility, and spread their yokeldom in the piazza and cafe.
WoN ereH
Wow, it's so reassuring to read something INTELLIGENT about art around here.
Thanks Edward.
Debra
Mani Deli
>On Fri, 31 Jan 2003 12:20:14 -0500, Mani Deli <ma...@sympatico.ca>
>wrote:
>
>>When visiting an exhibition of children's drawings, Piscasso remarked:
>>"When I was their age I could draw like Raphael, but it took me a
>>lifetime to learn to draw like them."
>>
>>The jerk thought he could draw like Raphael, can anyone point out any
>>evidence?
>>
>Look at his early paintings before 1900, for example "Sitting Girl" or
>"Die Taufe" both in 1895. It is not only a little bit like Raphael,
>for me it is better than Raphael.
Its a little closer to Raphael that Mondrian is to Vermeer. The
closest Picasso got to Rap heal was when he was standing next to one.
>Or one could say his paintings are
>further developped than those of Raphael. But may be this is a matter
>of taste.
>
>Frank
>http://www.opartandmore.de
I guess someone who can't do more than colored geometric doodles won't
see much difference between Raphael and Picasso.
G*rd*n
| ...
| The Internet seems to induce a deep Philistinism in which the
| bourgeois with a modem is enticed into a false consciousness in
| feeling that the cultural treasures of the world are "accessible" in
| the sense they are indeed accessible to the museum-goer.
The people you are talking about, the fundamentalists, are
not bourgeois. It was the bourgeoisie, mostly in the form
of well-off collectors and gallery-owners, who provided the
economic basis for the artistic developments of the 20th
century. Nor did the fundamentalists' feeling that all but
a very narrow spectrum of representation should be suppressed
originate with modems. Recall that the Nazis -- a party which
derived its original power by appealing to lower-middle-class
and working-class resentment of the better-off -- made it a
big point to destroy "degenerate" art. Likewise the lower-
class types who succeeded to power in the Soviet Union
insisted on "Socialist Realism". And there were plenty of
people who felt the same way elsewhere; I can remember the
ranting from my childhood and youth in the '40s and '50s.
I think we're talking about a much more general phenomenon
here, of huge populations, culturally damaged by millennia of
slavery, emerging into relative freedom and being unable to
deal with it except through violence and repression. This is
where the modem comes in: it is yet another emergence.
Considering some of the other things being done or proposed
these days, maybe this is a minor issue. After all, if some
people assume voluntary ignorance of Picasso's abilities and
training in order to feed their resentment and vanity, so
what?
--
(<><>) /*/
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
{ http://www.etaoin.com | latest new material 1/19/03 <-adv't
frankvo...@web.de
wrote:
....
>>Look at his early paintings before 1900, for example "Sitting Girl" or
>>"Die Taufe" both in 1895. It is not only a little bit like Raphael,
>>for me it is better than Raphael.
>
>Its a little closer to Raphael that Mondrian is to Vermeer. The
>closest Picasso got to Rap heal was when he was standing next to one.
>
>
>>Or one could say his paintings are
>>further developped than those of Raphael. But may be this is a matter
>>of taste.
>>
>>Frank
>>http://www.opartandmore.de
>
>I guess someone who can't do more than colored geometric doodles won't
>see much difference between Raphael and Picasso.
Hello Mani,
one question: what do you think about Bridget Riley and her Op-Art?
Frank
Mani Deli
>Hello Mani,
>
>one question: what do you think about Bridget Riley and her Op-Art?
>
>Frank
>
Vasarely had far more talent and produced some interesting abstract
stuff. However, Op art along with most Modern hard edge decoration
claiming to be art has been replaced by computer graphics which can
produce far more interesting output. A very average fractal is far
more interesting then any op art I'm aware of.
I consider Escher op art in a sense but unlike those who I think will
slowly disappear, Escher could draw like a master and had brilliant
ideas and almost no imitators because that would require great skill.
Mani Deli
a twenty-year-old at the tender age of fourteen. However, his academic
abilities did not improve beyond those of a very average
twenty-one-year-old. This was really no great achievement for one who
is sometimes ranked among the "greatest artists who ever lived."
The young Picasso learned traditional drawing by working from plaster
casts and the live model. His education included a bare minimum of
anatomy together with the rudiments of light and shade and very little
perspective, which is why all his paintings look partially flat.
Picasso was lucky in this; he lived in an age where flatness was to
become increasingly fashionable.
In judging the boy academic Picasso critics take great pains to point
out his classical ability. They love to assure us that, underneath it
all, Picasso, even then, was a most sensitive and able classical
draftsman. This admiration for the academic Picasso is often used as
an excuse to help justify his questionable later works. When someone
points out an error in Picasso's drawing or sloppiness in his
painting, the critic can retort, "This only looks bad to you because
you don't really understand; a look at Picasso's student work should
easily convince you that he could really draw well whenever he wanted
to!"
Modern Art critics who use this argument must be blind to skill. For
any careful viewer of these early works can see that here at his very
beginning is exactly where Picasso lacked the skill of a master.. Even
Picasso's best most realistic technically correct early drawings are
in reality little more than correct.Most exhibit careless proportion
and a total lack of ability in creating detail. At his very best
Picasso was always a mediocre draftsman early on and always
thereafter.
His conventional work shows no particular creative flair. None really
outranks the work of a very ordinary street-corner portraitist. In
truth these works are far less amazing than ecstatic M.A. critics like
to make out.
I challenge anyone here to tell us what is particularly great about
any particular Picasso student work. As to his vanity in imagining
himself close to Raphael I can only say that as he progressed his
drawing skills at his best attempt to rival those seen in Dick Tracy.
Picasso at his best was a third rate illustrator at his worst a fifth
rate cartoonist. He is more hype than any other 20th C. artist with
the exception of Cezanne.
Mani Deli
>g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> if some
>> people assume voluntary ignorance of Picasso's abilities and
>> training in order to feed their resentment and vanity, so
>> what?
I can insert any name into that sentence.
I've pointed out specific works which you have every opportunity to
see and say something about. I will point out many more.
>Exactly: so what?
Marcus Williamson
>Piscasso remarked
You could at least try to spell his name correctly...! :-)
frankvo...@web.de
wrote:
.....
>>Or one could say his paintings are
>>further developped than those of Raphael. But may be this is a matter
>>of taste.
>>
>>Frank
>>http://www.opartandmore.de
>
>I guess someone who can't do more than colored geometric doodles won't
>see much difference between Raphael and Picasso.
Just a remark concerning the doodles:
I freely admit I would never be able to draw like Raphael or Mani. My
brushwork is completely unskillful. But I have the ability to control
an electronic beam on your PC screen. So I can create virtual and
moving pictures on your screen which only exist while you are viewing
them.
Each doodle consists of more than 1000 lines of JAVA-code in the
average and is filled with algorithms. Perhaps you can imagine how
much skill is needed to produce such doodles, which are moving and
interacting with your mouse (and are playing with your brain).
As long as there is somebody in the internet who loves to play with
those doodles it is worth producing them. From the logfiles of my
provider I can read that there are some who love it and are playing
plenty of minutes with those virtual doodles.
Frank
Mani Deli
Picasso is said to have worked extremely hard on the Gertrude Stein
portrait taking many sittings and then revising it without the model a
year later. I believe its really the best he could do.
Here we have a very ordinary portrait, utterly conventional in
placement and composition, containing nothing new at all, a good early
example of Picasso’s No-Skill-Realism. I have seen the Portrait of
Gertrude Stein" (1906) in the museum many times and always wondered
why it should hang there.
If this painting was hanging in some dimly lit university hallway
with another signature minus the hype among the usual portraits, it
would be judged the among the worst.
The eyes and part of the mouth are like decals that have been
transferred to a solid head which looks like it was sculpted in rough,
carelessly tinted plaster. The wig looks like a mud flap that is
beginning to slide down the face and along the side of a flat pancake
ear. Unable to realistically separate the background and the cheek, he
did what a student would do, by drawing a brown line around it.
In order to get the best overview of the rest of this painting, cover
the face with a scrap of paper torn to fit over it and look at the
remainder of the picture. Note the "brown sauce" effect which is a
term accusingly used to point out a characteristic of academic
monotony. The solidity of the hands gives way to a body which is
little more than an amorphous brown blob while the background
deteriorates into a lot of dry brown crudely blended schmier. Even the
color is terrible and doesn’t display Picasso’s colorist’s skill.
Is this supposed to be a masterpiece?
Marcus Williamson
>it would be judged the among the worst.
Like your grammar?! :-)
Herbert Ward
ugly. Trangressions of taste are much worse than lack of skill.
Reminds me of a rock singer whose act was climbing into a big plastic
bag and belching.
Or politically-fueled people who talk forever about nothing.
Or the weird way people extol the taste of wine, which actually tastes
rotten.
Or the traditional tale "The Emperor's New Clothes".
Or the way people make rich heroes out of people like OJ Simpson.
In other words, IMHO there's a fundamental and widespread defect of
human nature which in your case has found its way into the art world.
Mani Deli
Disney to compare the drawing of the arms and hands in this piece of
stupidity to that of Mickey Mouse.
http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?aid=663809&item=143614
I've never seen a sentimental Hallmark card that was any more
sentimental than this incompetent scrawl. What Is that baby's leg
really attached to?
Thur
This was on exhibit in San Francisco last year. I wondered
what you might think of a 'work' that looks as unfinished as a
quick reference sketch?
It's from his earliest stuff. 1905-6
I suppose that some works, if they 'catch' a certain look that
people like, then they are willing to ignore the finish?
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_md_12639.html
Thur
"Picasso really knows the faces, the heads, the bodies
of human beings, he knows them as they have existed
since the existence of the human race, the soul of people
does not interest him, why interest oneself in the souls
of people when the face, the head, the body can tell
everything, why use words when one can express everything
by drawing and colors."
Gertrude Stein, 1938
"Mani Deli" <ma...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:tq944vocqdvdho1cj...@4ax.com...
sculpt...@ethanham.com
denigrate art & don't respect other's opinions suck? That Disney's art
should be held in higher regard? That Picasso's paintings are scrawl?
That Picasso can be (overly?) sentimental?
I haven't seen any postings denigrating Disney... but I have a couple
of thoughts in that regard. Is Disney's work art? Certainly by my
definition of art. And I think most people would accept my definition
of art (which I defined in an earlier posting) is *reasonable*, even
if they don't think it is the *best* definition. Is it fine art? I
don't think so. That isn't to say it isn't great art, meaningful art,
effective art, or influential art. Fine art is a category not a
quality judgement.
Regarding Picasso's "incompetant scrawl"... Is it incompetant if he
achieved exactly the effect he wanted? Does competency need to be
judged by it conforming to a particular taste or philosophy? If so,
would you then think that the oft-mentioned Bouguereau is incompetent
because he doesn't achieve astraction?
Mani Deli <ma...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message news:<tq944vocqdvdho1cj...@4ax.com>...
Mani Deli
stupidity.
It is an excellent example of over-the -couch sentiment for those who
want visitors to know that they are Modern Art sensitive. These types
rarely hang any excruciating Picasso as that's to much for them.
http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?aid=663809&item=143614
Perhaps Degree holder Fox can explain the placement and technical
aspects of the shoes and how the ball makes the composition.
Once again Picasso amazes us with his ability at drawing hands.
Mani Deli
John Ng
> I haven't seen any postings denigrating Disney...
The reason is mainly because the media (and ultimately the blind
critics and believers) do not overly emphasize Disney as an artist and
attribute him with things that never was. There are people, in their
50s now, who are so affected by propaganda that they think Picasso to
the greatest genius this century and up there among Darwin and
Einstein. How preposterous could one get?
> Disney's work art? … Is it fine art? I
> don't think so. … Fine art is a category not a
> quality judgement.
Then what about Duchamp's urinal? Why the difference? It is this
kind of stereotype media thinking that needs to be clarified. What
categorizes fine arts that Duchamp's machine-made device or Disney's
hand-drawn cartoon? Is it is the outrageousness, is it the
gimmickiness.
> Regarding Picasso's "incompetant scrawl"... Is it incompetant if he
> achieved exactly the effect he wanted?
Did Picasso achieve the effect he wanted or is he paying attention to
the media and ultimately the bank? Is the media cloaking his
"incompetant scrawls" with the myth of arty-ness?
> would you then think that the oft-mentioned Bouguereau is incompetent
> because he doesn't achieve astraction?
WRONG. Abstraction is as ancient as when Man started painting.
Contrary to what many believe, Bouguereau did lots of abstraction but
he combined them so cleverly that the viewer is totally deceived.
Study the flora in his paintings and it is abstraction whose
brilliance no abstract artists like Pollock could ever achieve.
John Ng
Advocate of a renewal in art and the return of realism
http://community.webshots.com/user/pigsmayfly
Leo Papandreou
> Here's a better known non-excrucaiting sentimental work of Picasso
> stupidity.
>
That's rich.
'Sentimental' must mean something different to Bouguereau's admirers than it
means to everyone else. If only you understood irony, or art, for that matter.
Anyway, I think it is apparent to everyone by now you don't like modern art,
that you are not prepared to crawl out of your ass long enough to evaluate
work outside your insular presumptions, that Spiderman can beat the crap out
of Batman in a steel cage match, that Miss Peru was robbed in the Miss Universe
contest, etc.
Have you read John Kennedy Toole's _A Confederacy of Dunces_? You remind me
of its protagonist, Ignatius J. Reilly, who is also the model for the Comic
Book Guy in The Simpsons:
Allposters.com's "Child with a Dove" was, without a doubt, the worst painting
ever. Rest assured that I was on the Internet within minutes, registering my
disgust throughout the world. Here I am at the computer, making a gesture of
abhorrence. Ah ha! Not even Princess Leah's double-edged light-saber, or Xena's
hypnotizing silicone arguments, can match Bouguereau's hog bristle filbert for
that rapier weapon's pitiless destruction of modern artzy fartzies!
--
Leo Papandreou
Worst sig ever.
sculpt...@ethanham.com
> > Disney's work art? … Is it fine art? I
> > don't think so. … Fine art is a category not a
> > quality judgement.
>
> Then what about Duchamp's urinal? Why the difference? It is this
> kind of stereotype media thinking that needs to be clarified. What
> categorizes fine arts that Duchamp's machine-made device or Disney's
> hand-drawn cartoon? Is it is the outrageousness, is it the
> gimmickiness.
Well, we clearly have different definitions of "fine art." What is
the definition you're working from? For me, it's "Fine art is art
that was created
Here's my definition of fine art: "Art that was created in hopes of
gaining recognition and acceptance by the fine art establishment
(i.e., critics, galleries, etc.), or art that has gained such
recognition." I like this definition because it includes
intentionality, takes into account the inadvertant acceptance of
artists who had no intention of making fine art (e.g., outsider art),
and does not require a judgment of quality.
Duchamp's urinal was certainly made to gain recognition/noteriety in
the fine arts community... I couldn't say for sure, but I'd bet Walt
Disney wouldn't classify his animation of fine art. Could be wrong,
though.
> > Regarding Picasso's "incompetant scrawl"... Is it incompetant if he
> > achieved exactly the effect he wanted?
>
> Did Picasso achieve the effect he wanted or is he paying attention to
> the media and ultimately the bank? Is the media cloaking his
> "incompetant scrawls" with the myth of arty-ness?
I'll answer your questions if you answer mine? :)
I have no idea if Picasso was cynically taking advantage of his fame
or not. I'm sure there are people who have a high opinion of Picasso
because that's the widely held view, and not because they have made an
independant judgment. *Shrugs* These seems like questions (and
answers) one could make of anyone successful in the arts.
I'm truly interested in the question of competence, though... if
Picasso's art were an exact fulfillment of what he wanted, isn't that
competence? If not, how would you define competence?
> > would you then think that the oft-mentioned Bouguereau is incompetent
> > because he doesn't achieve astraction?
>
> WRONG. Abstraction is as ancient as when Man started painting.
> Contrary to what many believe, Bouguereau did lots of abstraction but
> he combined them so cleverly that the viewer is totally deceived.
> Study the flora in his paintings and it is abstraction whose
> brilliance no abstract artists like Pollock could ever achieve.
Well, this really aside from the point I was trying to make. It
seemed to me Picasso was being labeled incompetent because of the
style he worked in... and it seems a mistake to me to judge a person
working in style X in terms of style Y.
Ethan Ham
this definition of fine art.
1. It seems to model reality pretty well. By this I mean, each of us can
probably imagine a works of art that we think are higher quality than some
of what can be seen in fine art museums, but at the same isn't the kind of
work is put into museums.
There's two ways of looking at this... either people are stupid and can't
judge quality, or fine art is a category that is orthogonal to quality.
Note, these are mutually exclusive. :) Personally, I find railing and the
former is unproductive, so I embrace the latter.
2. The problem with defining "fine art" as meaning "high quality art," is
that even if everyone in the newsgroup agreed upon that definition, we'd
still wouldn't be able to agree on whether a particular piece is fine art
(because we wouldn't agree on whether it is "good" or not).
I think the definition of fine art that I'm putting forward categorizes fine
art on a more objective basis and allows for easier consensus.
<sculpt...@ethanham.com> wrote in message
news:39734e71.03020...@posting.google.com...
> Well, we clearly have different definitions of "fine art." What is
> the definition you're working from?
>
John Ng
> Well, we clearly have different definitions of "fine art." What is
> the definition you're working from?
I am not a painter but started painting when I couldn't find anything
to decorate my house with. Fine arts is something I would fork out
money for, just to simply put in the house and sit pretty. Fine arts
is also something that I CANNOT do unless I take years to learn. Fine
arts is when the magority of onlookers feel a sense of awe, not just
in form but in colour and finish. Fine arts is NOT a thing that has
to be told to me by books and media.
> Here's my definition of fine art: "Art that was created in hopes of
> gaining recognition and acceptance by the fine art establishment
> (i.e., critics, galleries, etc.), or art that has gained such
> recognition."
Bouguereau was highly recognized by Salon (the greatest art body
during his time) and by fellow artists such as Dega and Renoir to be
the best artist who ever lived. Yet, today, he doesn't even come to
our history books. So using your definition, what is art today may
never be art tomorrow, just like Bouguereau (in your view). Your
definition includes the fact that if I am a very powerful player with
lots of media friends, then I become promoted and therefore become an
artist. Paul McCartney and Warhol are such persons whose otherwise
lousy work becomes something.
For me, the recognition aspect of an artist is really a "dollar note"
value, making his paintings a better investment, but not necessary
art. I would buy Duchamp's urinal (serious) for its investment value
(risky somewhat).
> I like this definition because it includes
> intentionality, takes into account the inadvertant acceptance of
> artists who had no intention of making fine art (e.g., outsider art),
> and does not require a judgment of quality.
Why? Do you mean that you cannot tell a good painting unless the
establishment say so?
> I have no idea if Picasso was cynically taking advantage of his fame
> or not.
There are lots of articles out there that said so.
I'm sure there are people who have a high opinion of Picasso
> because that's the widely held view, and not because they have made an
> independant judgment. *Shrugs* These seems like questions (and
> answers) one could make of anyone successful in the arts.
People have high opinion of Georgie Bush as well. Could the change of
opinion render something art today as non-art tomorrow? Success in
your kind of art is meeting the right contact and saying the right
lies.
> I'm truly interested in the question of competence, though... if
> Picasso's art were an exact fulfillment of what he wanted, isn't that
> competence? If not, how would you define competence?
Competence is not defined arbitrarily. There has to be a right or
wrong before you can do so. And Picasso's work has a build-in defense
against that. My paint splats too are always competent since there is
no benchmark... or is it competency or just lies?
John Ng
Andrew D
sculpt...@ethanham.com (sculpt...@ethanham.com) wrote:
>pigsm...@hotmail.com (John Ng) wrote in message
news:<d1bb492a.03020...@posting.google.com>...
>> > Disney's work art? … Is it fine art? I
>> > don't think so. … Fine art is a category not a
>> > quality judgement.
>>
>> Then what about Duchamp's urinal? Why the difference? It is this
>> kind of stereotype media thinking that needs to be clarified. What
>> categorizes fine arts that Duchamp's machine-made device or Disney's
>> hand-drawn cartoon? Is it is the outrageousness, is it the
>> gimmickiness.
>
>Well, we clearly have different definitions of "fine art." What is
>the definition you're working from? For me, it's "Fine art is art
>that was created
>Here's my definition of fine art: "Art that was created in hopes of
>gaining recognition and acceptance by the fine art establishment
Hang on. You can't use the term within a definition of itself. That's like
defining the colour "black" by saying it is "a colour that is the ultimate
of blackness"
>(i.e., critics, galleries, etc.),
> or art that has gained such
>recognition." I like this definition because it includes
>intentionality, takes into account the inadvertant acceptance of
>artists who had no intention of making fine art (e.g., outsider art),
>and does not require a judgment of quality.
But your definition of fine art requires an acceptance of a group who are
apparently already able to define what is or is not fine art. If you
accept that group exists, then you don't need a definition.
The problem is that the current 'art establishment' is being run by the
equivalent of the flat earth society. It's art because they say it's art
and everything they say past that point proves them right because
everything they say is based on their own conclusion. So the fact that
Picasso's paintings are cracking and peeling, for example, apparently
doesn't expose a flaw in his technique and/or media as most thinking
people might conclude but, according to these academics, actually proves
what a genius he was because his paintings are changing and exposing the
underlayers which allows us to see his painting process. What a load!
Andy D.
"I'm a great speller - but a hopless tpyist!"
Mani Deli
(sculpt...@ethanham.com) wrote:
>I'm not quite clear what is the focus of this posting:
I'm pointing out that a Modern Academic Art god can't draw well.
>That people who
>denigrate art & don't respect other's opinions suck?
In other words I better agree with you!
> That Disney's art
>should be held in higher regard? That Picasso's paintings are scrawl?
> That Picasso can be (overly?) sentimental?
>Regarding Picasso's "incompetant scrawl"... Is it incompetant if he
>achieved exactly the effect he wanted?
]
I'm not interested in what he wanted. I'm not interested whether or
not someone considers it art. Only the result counts. The fact is that
the result is incompetent scrawl.
> Does competency need to be
>judged by it conforming to a particular taste or philosophy?
> If so,
>would you then think that the oft-mentioned Bouguereau is incompetent
>because he doesn't achieve astraction?
I expect great art to reach somewhat beyond the abilities of an
average 12 year old.
And why not address the drawing and tell us what that baby's leg
Mani Deli
style club fingered double-faced stuff on canvas at such a furious
rate that his dealers were having shit fits. They worried about a
Picasso inflation so they wisely got him off to a ceramic workshop
where he could patze around on dinner plates and cool it on the
canvases.
There's a five pound book showing the best of Picasso's clunky dinner
plates. Well each to his own opinion. I have rarely seen anything
much more incompetent, ugly, repetitive and utterly stupid called
great art then Picasso's idiotic ceramics. Even the color is horrible.
If you want to see design, ideas, skill and craftsmanship look at
Dali's jewelry.
Mani Deli
>Here's my definition of fine art: "Art that was created in hopes of
>gaining recognition and acceptance by the fine art establishment
>(i.e., critics, galleries, etc.), or art that has gained such
>recognition."
A definition of a word can't contain the word it defines. There is no
hard edged definition of art. I never argue whether something is art
because this is a ploy. The question is whether its any good.
>I'm truly interested in the question of competence, though... if
>Picasso's art were an exact fulfillment of what he wanted, isn't that
>competence?
When Fox produces work on a level of a 12 year old which fulfills
what he wanted (whatever that really means) it doesn't mean he is
artistically competent.
> It
>seemed to me Picasso was being labeled incompetent because of the
>style he worked in... and it seems a mistake to me to judge a person
>working in style X in terms of style Y.
It has nothing to do with style realism or abstraction. Picasso is
incompetent in craftsmanship and technique; as are the majority of
Modern Academic Artists..
sculpt...@ethanham.com
>
>
> > Well, we clearly have different definitions of "fine art." What is
> > the definition you're working from?
>
> I am not a painter but started painting when I couldn't find anything
> to decorate my house with. Fine arts is something I would fork out
> money for, just to simply put in the house and sit pretty. Fine arts
> is also something that I CANNOT do unless I take years to learn. Fine
> arts is when the magority of onlookers feel a sense of awe, not just
> in form but in colour and finish. Fine arts is NOT a thing that has
> to be told to me by books and media.
Ok, let me see if I understand what you're saying. Fine art is
something (anything?) that would take years to learn to make and that
you (anyone?) would pay money for?
> > Here's my definition of fine art: "Art that was created in hopes of
> > gaining recognition and acceptance by the fine art establishment
> > (i.e., critics, galleries, etc.), or art that has gained such
> > recognition."
>
> Bouguereau was highly recognized by Salon (the greatest art body
> during his time) and by fellow artists such as Dega and Renoir to be
> the best artist who ever lived. Yet, today, he doesn't even come to
> our history books. So using your definition, what is art today may
> never be art tomorrow, just like Bouguereau (in your view). Your
> definition includes the fact that if I am a very powerful player with
> lots of media friends, then I become promoted and therefore become an
> artist. Paul McCartney and Warhol are such persons whose otherwise
> lousy work becomes something.
What do you think my view of Bougureau is? I'm pretty sure I haven't
posted any judgments regarding him. I did say he didn't do abstract
painting (which you pointed out was erroneous, though I'm not fully
convinced of your point). I'd say Bougureau is a fine artist.
> Why? Do you mean that you cannot tell a good painting unless the
> establishment say so?
Also notice, my definition doesn't require an artist to successfully
gain recognition in order to make fine art... all he or she needs to
be doing is *attempting* to gain that recognition.
Recognition by the fine arts community is really only in my definition
to handle the exception cases of people who would in no way classify
their art as fine art, yet fine art it has become... e.g., outsider
art.
> I'm sure there are people who have a high opinion of Picasso
> > because that's the widely held view, and not because they have made an
> > independant judgment. *Shrugs* These seems like questions (and
> > answers) one could make of anyone successful in the arts.
>
> People have high opinion of Georgie Bush as well. Could the change of
> opinion render something art today as non-art tomorrow? Success in
> your kind of art is meeting the right contact and saying the right
> lies.
Again, I never said you had to be *successful* in order to be making
fine art :)
> > I'm truly interested in the question of competence, though... if
> > Picasso's art were an exact fulfillment of what he wanted, isn't that
> > competence? If not, how would you define competence?
>
> Competence is not defined arbitrarily. There has to be a right or
> wrong before you can do so. And Picasso's work has a build-in defense
> against that. My paint splats too are always competent since there is
> no benchmark... or is it competency or just lies?
Ok, so it can't be arbitrary... I think you're still ducking my
question. If you made a bunch of random art splats, and another
artist was able to paint an exact duplicate of your random
splats--wouldn't that require some competence?
sculpt...@ethanham.com
general public look towards as the benchmark. I'm not saying that
this is good, or that we should have our own tastes dictated by some
outside agency--I'm just saying that the reality of the situation is
that there are museums, publishers, collectors, and galleries that
carry a lot of wait in determining what art is successful in terms of
being valuable and gaining a wide audience.
I'm not saying this group of institutions define what is "fine art,"
what I'm saying is that the attempt to please these institutions
define "fine art." What's interesting about this, I think, is that
history is an important factor...
Someone painting in the style of Monet today may not consider her art
"fine art" (i.e., she doesn't care whether it's collected, put into
museums, etc.). So by the definition I put forward, she wouldn't be
making fine art, even though Monet's paintings are (because they are
so valued by museums & collectors).
I can understand why you may find this a troubling definition.
Perhaps you feel it gives too much power to the establishment. But on
the other hand, it is pretty democratic--any artist who considers
their work fine art, and wants to gain popular/elite success is (by my
definition) making fine art. So in a weird way, the establishment
doesn't get to determine what is fine art.
Anyway, there's no way to come up with a perfect definition of art and
fine art... so to me it's a question of what defintion helps shape an
interesting (i.e., not ranting) discussion and helps me be more
productive as an artist.
Ethan
http://www.ethanham.com
right@the_end.of.my_tether (Andrew D) wrote in message news:<right-07020...@i185-091.nv.iinet.net.au>...
> In article <39734e71.03020...@posting.google.com>,
> sculpt...@ethanham.com (sculpt...@ethanham.com) wrote:
>
> >pigsm...@hotmail.com (John Ng) wrote in message
> news:<d1bb492a.03020...@posting.google.com>...
> >> > Disney's work art? … Is it fine art? I
> >> > don't think so. … Fine art is a category not a
> >> > quality judgement.
> >>
> >> Then what about Duchamp's urinal? Why the difference? It is this
> >> kind of stereotype media thinking that needs to be clarified. What
> >> categorizes fine arts that Duchamp's machine-made device or Disney's
> >> hand-drawn cartoon? Is it is the outrageousness, is it the
sculpt...@ethanham.com
points out of my attempt to reiterate your definition. So, I thought
I'd take another stab at it. :) Also, I think this is an interesting
enough topic to break out into its own sub-thread.
Ok, so here's what I take you to be saying, fine art:
* Is something you (anyone?) would pay money for
* Something that you (anyone?) would have to spend years to learn how
to do
* Something that the majority of viewers would be emotionally
heightened by
* Something that the majority of viewers would agree has an impressive
display of form, color, & finish [I'm not quite sure what you mean by
finish in this context]
For it to be fine art, does it have to meet all of these criteria, or
is a subset sufficent?
pigsm...@hotmail.com (John Ng) wrote in message news:<d1bb492a.03020...@posting.google.com>...
Edward G. Nilges
Only in the sense that Bouguereau was tone-deaf to nature and did not
even look at flora outside his studio. Bouguereau was compelled to be
abstract in his backgrounds because he used models in studios, and,
unlike the Impressionists, had contempt for nature.
Furthermore, he used brown soups for shadows on middle-toned
underpainting. He did so only because the painters had used warm
colors for the underpainting, which was an even, brownish tone.
However, owing to a misunderstanding of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who
mistook the deterioration of 16th century art as viewed in inferior
lighting of the 18th century, traditional artists of the 19th century
overused warm colors and browns for shading.
They failed to see, as did the impressionists and the Fauves, that
shadows, depending on the lighting conditions, usually fail to be
black or brown as they are in a studio lit by gas lamps.
Reynolds evolved a BS theory of art which attributed greater nobility
to brown soups. By the time of the first Impressionist show, the
French bourgeois had been saturated with the ideological baggage of
this theory which included a binary opposition between "serious" and
not serious art such that the "serious" art would fail to gratify the
senses, and this would be a point in its favor.
It is absurd to claim that the dreary backgrounds of Bouguereau's
dreary art are anything but his incompetence even at the task of
naturalism. As I have shown he mastered only a set of academic
techniques and as such was at a loss in the "not serious" zones of his
paintings.
Leo Papandreou
> I was re-reading your posting and realized I left a couple of your
> points out of my attempt to reiterate your definition. So, I thought
> I'd take another stab at it. :) Also, I think this is an interesting
> enough topic to break out into its own sub-thread.
>
> Ok, so here's what I take you to be saying, fine art:
>
> * Is something you (anyone?) would pay money for
> * Something that you (anyone?) would have to spend years to learn how
> to do
> * Something that the majority of viewers would be emotionally
> heightened by
> * Something that the majority of viewers would agree has an impressive
> display of form, color, & finish [I'm not quite sure what you mean by
> finish in this context]
>
> For it to be fine art, does it have to meet all of these criteria, or
> is a subset sufficent?
Are you searching for a formal definition? Good luck. I don't think you can
construct a set of categories that would encompass art and exclude non-art.
But defining art is harmless good fun and I'm game. Here are my three attempts.
[1] Art is what artists create. I am ambivalent about theory, so this is my
favorite definition. It is a paragon of simplicity. No tortuous hermeneutics
or frothing apologetics are required in its defense.
[2] An art object is a device conceived in order to manufacture the consent
and appreciation of a model audience. The empirical audience (you and I and
what the heck John and Mani) will construct its appreciation according to a
complex strategy of interactions, but principally our competence in visual
language. By visual language is meant the /performance/ of a set of elements
such as form, line, shape, space, texture, value, balance, contrast, emphasis,
proportion, pattern, rhythm, unity, variety, etc. The performance of this
language is the cultural conventions it has produced, namely, the history of
previous interpretations of many art objects. Thus every act of looking at a
painting is a struggle between the observer's competence (her world knowledge)
and the competence a given art object postulates in order to be understood
economically, without spawning a cancer of interpretations, or no
interpretation at all. When the observer is thoroughly incompetent, the word
artzy-fartzy flashes across her mind, and she reaches for the _Boys Big Book
of Bouguereau Babes_.
[3] Art is a challenge to its contemporary audience's established visual
language. Everything else is more or less decoration. Thus, Michelangelo's
are art, because they challenged the visual language established by papist
cultural magnates; and Munch's are art, too, because they challenged everyone
who wasn't a gaunt psychotic troll living a life of unrelieved gloom north of
the Arctic Circle; but Mani's faux Dali's are not art, because their artist
has none of that dangerous skill-fu.
Whenever I have a Mencken moment, I am inclined to sympathize with the self-
styled anti-establishmentarian, anti-elitist elitists, but then I remember the
Salon they would reinstate was elitist in its own day, and doesn't it look
snazzy in its refurbished threads. The circle of adjectives for pretty picture
is closed. Accept it. Transcend it. Quit chasing your tails.
--
Leo Papandreou
Numbers are disappointed words. Words are are disappointed pictures.
Ethan Ham
> [1] Art is what artists create. I am ambivalent about theory, so this is
my
> favorite definition. It is a paragon of simplicity. No tortuous
hermeneutics
> or frothing apologetics are required in its defense.
This is pretty much the definition I work from. Of course, it begs "what is
an artist." My answer to that is anyone who considers themselves an artist
is an artist.
> [3] Art is a challenge to its contemporary audience's established visual
> language. Everything else is more or less decoration. Thus, Michelangelo's
> are art, because they challenged the visual language established by papist
> cultural magnates; and Munch's are art, too, because they challenged
everyone
> who wasn't a gaunt psychotic troll living a life of unrelieved gloom north
of
> the Arctic Circle; but Mani's faux Dali's are not art, because their
artist
> has none of that dangerous skill-fu.
So what happens when a artwork no longer is challenging... e.g., the times
have changed and what was once challenging is now the norm. Is that art is
'decoration'? I used to hold stock in a definition of art along the lines
of this one, but I discarded it so that I wouldn't have to angst over
whether my artwork is decoration or not :)
Ethan Ham
distinction I thought might be worth raising for this topic. I would put
forth that there are three different things we could be defining here:
1. A definition of "fine art"
2. A definition of "good art"
3. A definition of John's "personal taste"
I think it is very, very important to differentiate between "fine art" and
"art that is good" (though not all the dictionaries will back me up on that
:). Why? Because if they are indistinguishable--if "fine art" is a
category of quality--then what's the point of having the term? It is much
more useful and interesting to be able to say "that is not a very good work
of fine art" or "that's a really good piece of art, although it isn't fine
art."
I think "fine art" is analogous to "literary fiction"--that is to say, it is
a category. So to say "oh, that book is 'Science Fiction', not 'Literary
Fiction'," is simply to place it in a category, not to judge its quality.
Same with "Fine Art" and "Art."
I think for both "literary fiction" and "fine art," it is easy to read into
the category connotations of quality judgment. But I also think everyone
would find the world a lot less frustrating if they didn't have to see a
work of art being categorized as "fine art" to mean the same as to say it is
"great art" (and vice versa). If a consensus was agreed on this point, we
could move on to defining "good art" :)
<sculpt...@ethanham.com> wrote in message
news:39734e71.03020...@posting.google.com...
Nikolaus Maack
[complex thoughts snipped]
Everyone is an artist. Everything is art. Not everything is art of value.
Ethan Ham
> >Here's my definition of fine art: "Art that was created in hopes of
> >gaining recognition and acceptance by the fine art establishment
> >(i.e., critics, galleries, etc.), or art that has gained such
> >recognition."
>
> A definition of a word can't contain the word it defines. There is no
> hard edged definition of art. I never argue whether something is art
> because this is a ploy. The question is whether its any good.
Okey doke. Replace "fine art establishment" with "critics, galleries,
museums, etc."
> >I'm truly interested in the question of competence, though... if
> >Picasso's art were an exact fulfillment of what he wanted, isn't that
> >competence?
>
> When Fox produces work on a level of a 12 year old which fulfills
> what he wanted (whatever that really means) it doesn't mean he is
> artistically competent.
Ok, I'd put forth the same question I asked John. If you take a 12 year
old's painting and are able to paint an *exact* copy, wouldn't that take
skill/competence?
>
> > It
> >seemed to me Picasso was being labeled incompetent because of the
> >style he worked in... and it seems a mistake to me to judge a person
> >working in style X in terms of style Y.
>
> It has nothing to do with style realism or abstraction. Picasso is
> incompetent in craftsmanship and technique; as are the majority of
> Modern Academic Artists..
Hmmm, maybe. But could it also be that the issues they are wanting to
address in their art are orthogonal to what you would define as
"craftsmanship" and "technique"? What I'm really putting forward is a
relativist's view... that we take a person's art on its own terms. That's
not to say we can't *criticize* someone art--but to me, the interesting
criticism is, "What was Picasso's art trying to say? Did it accomplish
that?" Rather than "Picasso sucks."
Ethan Ham
> >denigrate art & don't respect other's opinions suck?
>
> In other words I better agree with you!
Well, I was trying to be ironic in my interpretation of what you were saying
:) But seriously, I have not problem with you not liking Picasso or
thinking him overrated. What causes me pause is my inference that you're
also saying "Anyone who likes Picasso is ignorant, misguided, and/or
pretentious."
> >Regarding Picasso's "incompetant scrawl"... Is it incompetant if he
> >achieved exactly the effect he wanted?
> ]
> I'm not interested in what he wanted. I'm not interested whether or
> not someone considers it art. Only the result counts. The fact is that
> the result is incompetent scrawl.
If your position is "I am an island in my opinion," (my interpretation) then
why particpate in discussion?
> > Does competency need to be
> >judged by it conforming to a particular taste or philosophy?
> > If so,
> >would you then think that the oft-mentioned Bouguereau is incompetent
> >because he doesn't achieve astraction?
>
> I expect great art to reach somewhat beyond the abilities of an
> average 12 year old
Well, I would put forth that perhaps it does--just not on the axis you're
judging it by.
> And why not address the drawing and tell us what that baby's leg
> really attached to?
I'm not arguing that the painting is realistic. I'm arguing that it isn't
wise to judge paintings solely on that criterion. I'd find your point of
view much more compelling if you were saying something along the lines of:
"Hey, here's a Modern Abstract painter who was going for the same thing as
Picasso, and was much more successful in accomplishing it."
Mani Deli
suited for the back of a brown paper bag,
http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?aid=565967&item=320901
Politicos as well as many critics thought it would become a universal
logo symbolizing peace, but the public didn't see it that way.
Mani Deli
<sculpt...@ethanham.com> wrote:
>> >That people who
>> >denigrate art & don't respect other's opinions suck?
>>
>> In other words I better agree with you!
>
>Well, I was trying to be ironic in my interpretation of what you were saying
>:) But seriously, I have not problem with you not liking Picasso or
>thinking him overrated. What causes me pause is my inference that you're
>also saying "Anyone who likes Picasso is ignorant, misguided, and/or
>pretentious."
Quote me on that!
>> I'm not interested in what he wanted. I'm not interested whether or
>> not someone considers it art. Only the result counts. The fact is that
>> the result is incompetent scrawl.
>
>If your position is "I am an island in my opinion," (my interpretation) then
>why particpate in discussion?
I presume you have no opinions.
>> I expect great art to reach somewhat beyond the abilities of an
>> average 12 year old
>
>Well, I would put forth that perhaps it does--just not on the axis you're
>judging it by.
Fine, does that mean you have an opinion?
>> And why not address the drawing and tell us what that baby's leg
>> really attached to?
>
>I'm not arguing that the painting is realistic.
But it is!
> I'm arguing that it isn't
>wise to judge paintings solely on that criterion. I'd find your point of
>view much more compelling if you were saying something along the lines of:
>"Hey, here's a Modern Abstract painter who was going for the same thing as
>Picasso, and was much more successful in accomplishing it."
>
Indeed, check out a good comic book.
Thur
It might be more convincing to list all possible values a work
of art might contain, then agree that not all works contain all
values on the list but all have a significant number.
I suppose that a Kinkade work might have only one point.
Whereas say a masterwork(choose your own)
might have a majority of points.
I found a good number of hits by "fine art" definition, on Google
here are two.
http://www.steliga.com/FineArtDefn.htm
http://www.lewimaging.com/artspot/dapvsfin.html
Thur
"Ethan Ham" <sculpt...@ethanham.com> wrote in message
news:6W91a.5709$tO2.5...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
Ethan Ham
> >If your position is "I am an island in my opinion," (my interpretation)
then
> >why particpate in discussion?
>
> I presume you have no opinions.
Oh no, I have opinions! :) I'm just open to them changing. If there was
nothing you could say that would effect what I think, I wouldn't be
interested in chatting with you. What I find interesting is learning some
new stuff, having my thoughts refined through being challenged, and
re-evaluating whether I might be off-track on some view I currently hold.
> >> I expect great art to reach somewhat beyond the abilities of an
> >> average 12 year old
> >
> >Well, I would put forth that perhaps it does--just not on the axis you're
> >judging it by.
>
> Fine, does that mean you have an opinion?
On Picasso? No strongly held view on whether his art is good or not, though
clearly he has had a huge impact & influence, so by that measure I think he
was successful/effective. Frankly, my art history is a bit weak--especially
outside of sculpture.
I much more interested in the meta-issues here--i.e., how does one frame a
discussion about what is good art, what is fine art, what is high art, etc.
Also, I would strongly argue against anyone who is trying to exclude a
particular style from being art.
So as to not be a total weenie, I'll tell you my personal feelings (not so
much thoughts) about Picasso. When deciding whether I like a work or not, I
don't usually approach it intellectually. For me it really whether the
piece moves me or not. A fair number of Picasso's pieces give me a
emotional lift, including your example piece of his with the girl. Maybe my
approach to art is analogous to "sexiness" in the way that it is
visceral--i.e., beauty doesn't necessarily correlate to how sexy I find
someone.
Anyway, it doesn't really matter to me if people agree with me or not on
what art I like... I don't take it to be an objective truth.
> >> And why not address the drawing and tell us what that baby's leg
> >> really attached to?
> >
> >I'm not arguing that the painting is realistic.
>
> But it is!
You know for a fact that Picasso was trying to portray the subjects
realistically? What is your source?
Ethan Ham
It seems to me that Picasso's work was probably trying to address something
about how we see objects, or perhaps questioning "what is art." You seem
pretty educated on art history, so my guess is that you could actually
explain it pretty well Picasso's themes & goals.
Comic book art, for the most part, seems to be focused on effectively
communicating a narrative, and to use a simplified visual language towards
that end. Do you disagree?
Roy L. Ballou
sculpt...@ethanham.com says...
>I think it is very, very important to differentiate between "fine art" and
>"art that is good" (though not all the dictionaries will back me up on that
I think it's MUCH simpler than people posting
here wish to acknowledge. FINE ART is what
art history books are written about. Pick up
any voluminous art history book and you'll
generally find a consensus by virtue of what
the various historians include in their tomes.
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Roy L. Ballou" <bal...@noemailever.com> wrote in message
news:3e45...@news.zianet.com...
constant either. Read an art history book from 1930 and compare it to one of
2003 and you will see rather substantial differences - may things considered
'fine art' in 1930 are not even mentioned in 2003. This goes for literature,
poetry, sculpture and architecture as much as for painting and drawing.
Also this retrospective view doesn't help establish what contemporary
paintings, drawings, sculpture and so forth will be considered as 'fine art'
in 2050, and is even less likely to help giving us a view of what is 'fine
art' in 3050, if it is still a matter of debate then.
Watch out for the misuse of capitals though, Roy, most nutters (including
nutters found in this newsgroup) cannot avoid but give themselves away as
nutters by their misuse - even when their problem has been pointed out to
them.
Also, Roy, you might spend a fraction of a second wondering why it is that
so many people, some of them not that thick, who ponder this matter even
though it is so clearly simple and obvious to you.
There was a nice sign in a shop near here: 'Teenagers: Leave school, get a
job, make your fortune - while you still know everything'.
You might like to think about that too.
--
Lee Harvey Oswald, where are you when your country needs you? - graffito
(Anon)
Ethan Ham
class this morning. And I found the definition problematic for reasons
along the lines of what Peter Brooks brought up in his posting (sibling to
this one).
My preference is to have a definition of "fine art" that is ahistorical--by
this I mean it isn't dependant on society's viewpoint at any one time in
history. I don't think I'm on terra firma, here though, and the merit of
this preference certainly can be argued.
The other problem I have with it is that it seems to me your definition
seems to put too much emphasis on *success*. I'd like "fine art" to be able
to include works that are overlooked.
Anyway, here's my suggestion: How about using "high art" as the term for
art that has been embraced by the art establishment (e.g., appears in art
history books).
"Roy L. Ballou" <bal...@noemailever.com> wrote in message
news:3e45...@news.zianet.com...
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Ethan Ham" <sculpt...@ethanham.com> wrote in message
news:Ybh1a.6772$tO2.6...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
> I was thinking about this very thing while driving to my figure in clay
> class this morning. And I found the definition problematic for reasons
> along the lines of what Peter Brooks brought up in his posting (sibling to
> this one).
>
> My preference is to have a definition of "fine art" that is
ahistorical--by
> this I mean it isn't dependant on society's viewpoint at any one time in
> history. I don't think I'm on terra firma, here though, and the merit of
> this preference certainly can be argued.
>
more than one painting in his life time - he might even have died knowing he
was a great artist.
>
> The other problem I have with it is that it seems to me your definition
> seems to put too much emphasis on *success*. I'd like "fine art" to be
able
> to include works that are overlooked.
>
> Anyway, here's my suggestion: How about using "high art" as the term for
> art that has been embraced by the art establishment (e.g., appears in art
> history books).
>
'installations' being the current establishment fad - as well as decorative
drawings and paintings, I await a house painter being given the Turner Prize
for an airtex installation of 'an abstract kitchen interior, white with a
hint of puce and some stray brushstrokes between the wall and the ceiling'.
Mind you, that would be a truthful description, the prize title would be
something like 'post-modern deconstruction internalised'.
Ok, it is quite easy being a prophet these days, so I won't take any credit
for predicting next year's Turner prize correctly!
--
"Ecce Edwardus Ursus scalis numc tump-tump-tump occipite gradus pulsante
post Christophorum Robinum descendens. Est quod sciatunus et solus modus
gradibus descendendi,nonnunquam autem sentit, etiam alterum modum estare,
dummodo pulsationibus desinere et de eo modo meditari possit. Deinde censet
alios modos non esse. En, nunc ipse in imo est, vobis ostentari paratus." -
Winnie ille Pu.
Mani Deli
<sculpt...@ethanham.com> wrote:
>You know for a fact that Picasso was trying to portray the subjects
>realistically? What is your source?
>
Two eyes.
I see attempts to draw a face, hands feet etc. and that amounts to a
degree of realism beyond pure abstraction.
I suspect you see the same.
Ethan Ham
something so that it clearly represents something the same as trying to
paint it realistically?
What if I decided I wanted to paint an exact replica of that Picasso
painting. If I managed that, wouldn't I be painting something perfectly
realistic (i.e., a photo-realistic painting of a Picasso painting)? What if
Picasso was painting a photo-realistic painting of the image in his mind?
Wouldn't he be displaying a high level of skill? [I feel like I keep asking
that question in various ways, but never get a straight answer :)]
"Mani Deli" <ma...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:27eb4vovdkab5t3r3...@4ax.com...
Edward G. Nilges
> > >Here's my definition of fine art: "Art that was created in hopes of
> > >gaining recognition and acceptance by the fine art establishment
> > >(i.e., critics, galleries, etc.), or art that has gained such
> > >recognition."
> >
> > A definition of a word can't contain the word it defines. There is no
> > hard edged definition of art. I never argue whether something is art
> > because this is a ploy. The question is whether its any good.
>
> Okey doke. Replace "fine art establishment" with "critics, galleries,
> museums, etc."
>
> > >I'm truly interested in the question of competence, though... if
> > >Picasso's art were an exact fulfillment of what he wanted, isn't that
> > >competence?
> >
> > When Fox produces work on a level of a 12 year old which fulfills
> > what he wanted (whatever that really means) it doesn't mean he is
> > artistically competent.
>
> Ok, I'd put forth the same question I asked John. If you take a 12 year
> old's painting and are able to paint an *exact* copy, wouldn't that take
> skill/competence?
...signs of intelligent life...
It would take skill, but not artistic skill (imo), and it would take a
skill that is not commercially viable except in the forging of
currency, and art.
The REAL art of the child is his openness to experience which adult
artists labor to recapture, and combine with the grown-up's knowledge
of the world.
For example, in a film of Alexander Calder, making a mobile circus, it
is clear that the guy is, for one thing, having a great deal of
childish fun, as well as incorporating a circus into a conception of
mobile sculpture which was an adult contribution to art.
Of course, all this is lost upon artistic neoconservatives. The very
idea that the artist might just wanna have fun offends their nasty
souls.
Children's art is not "great" art because it is no victory, as Goya's
work was a victory, over the grown-ups knowledge that we live in a
society in which events, such as the slaughter of the defenders of
Madrid, can happen. But Saturn Eating His Children was a reaction to
trauma which externalized evil and which declared, I have witnessed
things in my life which no child should see again.
>
> >
> > > It
> > >seemed to me Picasso was being labeled incompetent because of the
> > >style he worked in... and it seems a mistake to me to judge a person
> > >working in style X in terms of style Y.
> >
> > It has nothing to do with style realism or abstraction. Picasso is
> > incompetent in craftsmanship and technique; as are the majority of
> > Modern Academic Artists..
>
> Hmmm, maybe. But could it also be that the issues they are wanting to
> address in their art are orthogonal to what you would define as
> "craftsmanship" and "technique"? What I'm really putting forward is a
> relativist's view... that we take a person's art on its own terms. That's
> not to say we can't *criticize* someone art--but to me, the interesting
> criticism is, "What was Picasso's art trying to say? Did it accomplish
> that?" Rather than "Picasso sucks."
Perhaps we should also ask, did I like it and was my art bone touched
by the work. By "art bone" I do not mean anything improper, only
Kant's idea that the response to art is like the pure impulse towards
duty on the ethical plane, something not reducible to anything else.
I should mention in this connection that in recovery from a brutal
divorce with children and their needs involved in the early 1980s I
made a strange discovery. That if I went to the old San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art, which at that time was in the Greco-Roman pile
of the SF Civic Center (about which it seemed to me was invented the
saying "it's hell when the Irish get rich") I found that looking, for
the first time, at art without external judgement but as art alone
gave me moral clarity on duties outside of art, and serenity.
The art bone isn't directly connected to the moral bone but one
difficulty one has in divorce happens to be purity of heart. Mocking
voices assail one about dangers and advantages and appetite, and any
divorce lawyer knows the impure gleam in the eye when money and
property are involved.
It is one thing for the Philistine to go to the museum and, in hopes
of not wasting the price of admission, look for something that the
artist has "said", such that what the artist has "said" can take the
place of the work of art, and the memorization of a sort of moral
lesson can replace the response of the art bone.
For example, the Cavatina movement of Beethoven's B flat late quartet
(I think that's the work) opens with a noise of utmost tenderness and
forgiveness, almost a musical laying on of hands. But these words of
course fail to do justice to the thing itself.
Guernica can't be reproduced by a war correspondent, even one like Ed
Murrow. That's because Picasso's individual human reaction, as a
transplanted Spaniard, to the news of Guernica is "in" the painting.
As one who grew up in a rural society, for example, Picasso knew the
horror of the suffering of beasts as in the death agony of horses
which adds to human terror as the human is reduced itself to the
beast's death throes.
Notice also, always assuming that reproductions of Guernica aren't
removed from the Internet by John Ashcroft, Picasso's use of the
gaslamp image in Guernica.
The gaslamp appears in several Picasso works, most notably in an
etching of his Minotaur avoiding a young girl who holds it up. I
THINK it may represent to Picasso Enlightenment in that when he was
young, Spanish cities were lit by gaslamps which at the time
represented European civilization and progress.
The trouble was that during this period, many people in Spain (rather
like people in America today) were convinced that their fathers and
grandfathers were overall better men than they, and they were
convinced of this because of Spain's 19th-century physical decline.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Spain lost most of its Latin
American colonies and ideological domination of Europe. The latter
was lost because Spanish physical power, at its zenith in the 15th and
16th centuries, was based on its rather self-satisfied idea that as a
society it was (as we Irish say) "more Catholic than de Pope."
This ideological dominance accompanying genuine "high tech" physical
power is strangely prophetic of American super-power today.
Spain's pre-eminence began to crack during the Thirty Years War when
the Pope himself (Urban Xii) refused to go along with Spanish desires
to dominate Germany in his name, and by Picasso's time, Spain was rife
with rather decaying families who feared and mistrusted gaslamps,
while at the same time finding them useful...even as American families
mistrust the Internet's effect on their children but have to access it
all the same.
In Guernica, the Enlightenment of the gaslamp occupies an ambiguous
zone for it comes from the same place as the bombing. Picasso
instinctively knew that the European enlightenment (in which Spain
participated not at all) was two-edged and that it could easily create
the science of terror bombing.
Yet in his series of the young girl and the Minotaur Picasso also
acknowledges that the old Mediterranean darkness (the darkness of the
Minotaur's labyrinth) was neither, no fit place for man nor beast.
The young girl represents a sort of compromise to him because in
holding the lamp she makes it unsafe only for the Minotaur, and roots
it to the earth, rather than making "high technology" what it was for
people during the Spanish Civil War, something that rained down death
and destruction from on high.
This may be to credit Picasso with more insight than he actually had.
According to people from his ex-mistress Francois Gilot to his
granddaughter, the guy manifested, in his dealings with his son Juan,
all the psychological insight of two other Mediterranean males, Frank
Sinatra and Tony Soprano.
But any artist worth his art is a collision of natural forces, and
Picasso knew very well that the Minotaur was him, as in the insight of
the bomber pilot, at the end of Stanley Kubrick's film Fail Safe. In
that film, the bomber pilot, who has to destroy New York in return for
a computer error that has destroyed Moscow, realizes the meaning of a
recurring dream as he takes the standard issue suicide pill after
releasing the New York bomb.
The bomber pilot says, "the matador: I!".
Resolving these conflicts is the real job of the artist, not
quarrelling about who kin draw gude.
>
> Ethan
> http://www.ethanham.com
Edward G. Nilges
...signs of intelligent life...
In my adjoining reply to Ethan, I mentioned in addition to Guernica,
an etching by Picasso of a young girl and the Minotaur. Here it is on
the Internet:
http://www.humanities-interactive.org/ancient/myth/ex051_06a.html
This etching also makes reference to Christ (the man on the ladder)
and the Rape of Europa in the Cubist woman on the bull.
This work doesn't "say" anything but I have always been moved by the
purity of the young girl and the fact that in this work, she gets to
hold the lamp.
Picasso was a man's man, a Mediterranean male, who was in awe of the
power of women (a power I think American Beauties misuse
systematically in a Foucauldian policing of male bodies, sordid
details being available in my exchange with Debra.) One of his themes
was the exclusion of the male from the act of birth, an exclusion
which a number of Greek myths try to address by means of
parthenogenesis fables. The Art Institute at Chicago has a painting
which was originally of a family at the beach (one of Picasso's
favorite places) in which the artist later decided to remove the male
as disrupting the composition.
Picasso as an artist instinctively knew all about the utter contempt
which Linda Hamilton gives voice to in Terminator II: "you men, with
your science and your art, can't make one baby and you can't stand
it." She's right, we can't, but we keep on truckin' and that itself
is a form of creativity.
As an old fart, the temptation for me is to draw Improving Moral
Lessons from Picasso's Minotauromachia. But the art bone only
discerns the old myths erupting (as they did in Bosnia) confronted
with Christ's escape from the world, and standing alone with what
seems to be courage a young woman with a lamp.
The Modernist courage (as seen in popular art in the movie Casablanca)
was the Kantian discovery that one is still capable of moral response
without a religious gesture: Bogey walks into the fog with the
compromised *flaneur* Captain Reynaud in honor of Victor's purity of
heart, leaving Ingrid Bergman, not in the lurch, but in a sort of
tentative moral order...that, in a very satisfying way, makes right
the moral chaos seen in the rest of the movie.
Similarly, the young girl needs no myths, whether ancient or
Christian, she just hangs on to her lamp.
Children, instinctively, confirm Chomsky when at the age of three or
so they will correct their parent's grammar, and they also seem to
have a sort of moral grammar which predates sending them to Sunday
School: it's in their eyes, and my local peace group wants to make
signs saying "babies for war" to point up the reality of a moral
grammar.
Picasso, in Minotauromachia, was artistically blundering towards some
sort of light, an already mortally wounded Minotaur.
Mani Deli
outrage that I should claim that Picasso used photographs and an
opaque projector.
An interesting article in the NY Times titled "Photographs that fed
Picasso's vision." (1-11-98) reveals how Picasso worked from
photographs. Included is a photo of Picasso doctoring a 35mm slide. .
I have my information about Picasso's use of photos and projection
from private sources and now this article confirms my view.
The fact is that those who can't draw will get little help by using
photos because they don't understand light and shade. (Larry Rivers
and Hockney show the best examples of contemporary incompetent
schmiered over photo projection)
Picasso's use of photos only goes to show his incompetence. My
favorite example is the portrait of his son, "Paulo and the Donkey."
You will notice that even in his best portraits he can't really manage
the drapery and the hands.
I suppose that artzy-fartzies will offer the usual excuse for this
namely, that he wanted it that way. Well that may be, but whatever he
wanted its no better than very average student work. I might add that
in spite of all the raves about Picasso's great drawing ability, any
comparison of his academic student work to that of average academic
drawing of that period show that Picasso was nothing special. Of
course it is hard to see academic drawing of that period. I suspect
it's because it would show what nothing draftsmen the great Modern
Academic artists really are.
Mani Deli
>Do you really believe that, or are you just trying to score points?
Robert Crumb and twenty other comic artists draws fifty times better
than Picasso. At his best I regard Picasso as a third rate cartoonist
with very little in the line of ideas.
>
>It seems to me that Picasso's work was probably trying to address something
>about how we see objects, or perhaps questioning "what is art." You seem
>pretty educated on art history, so my guess is that you could actually
>explain it pretty well Picasso's themes & goals.
One doesn't need to know a damned thing about art history in order to
see that a hand in a picture looks like its done by an eight year old.
>Comic book art, for the most part, seems to be focused on effectively
>communicating a narrative, and to use a simplified visual language towards
>that end. Do you disagree?
Yes, but the best comic book art contains some of the finest in 20th
century graphics.
If a picture looks like it was done by an eight year old its the
artist's problem, not the viewer 's.
Chris
>
> Picasso's use of photos only goes to show his incompetence. My
> favorite example is the portrait of his son, "Paulo and the Donkey."
> You will notice that even in his best portraits he can't really manage
> the drapery and the hands.
Hunh? How can you say this? For a good counter-example, check out
http://nga.gov/images/noncol/sabartesfs.htm
Such delicacy of line! such power of suggestion!We all know people generally
have 5 digits on their hands; why be boringly explicit when the playful
artist can offer us the keen interplay between a 3 fingered block of wood
(presaging Disney's Mickey Mouse) on one the one hand counter-poised against
a lovely clump of spaghetti on the other! To say nothing of the intellectual
audacity of having a leg growing from Sabartes stomach! And we can't forget
the folds in the clothing; we have to ask ourselves when we look at this
drawing what Picasso was trying to make us realize when he drew clothes as
if all the starch in Spain was used during the ironing. Was this a comment
on intellectual rigidity? Or perhaps a hint of the coming revolution,
prescient by 36 years? There's a Ph.D.thesis in that for sure....
Chris
John Ng
> Ok, let me see if I understand what you're saying. Fine art is
> something (anything?) that would take years to learn to make and that
> you (anyone?) would pay money for?
I speak only of paintings. Fine arts is something takes an amount of
learning and skill. It is something that the majority of onlookers
feel a sense of awe and beauty, not just in form but in colour and
finish. It is something I would feel intrigued enough to fork out
money without knowing who the painter is. Fine arts is NOT a thing
that has to be told to me by books and media.
Wide publicity given to a painting will distort how people view it. I
am sure people will flock to see the Guernica, not because it is good
art, but because of the high level of publicity given to it. This is
the side-show effect. Your definition of art is simply the cause and
measure of publicity.
> I'd say Bougureau is a fine artist.
But according to your definition, in terms of today, he would be a
pretty bad artist as he doesn't appear in most art history books, and
if he did, they are disparaging statements.
> Also notice, my definition doesn't require an artist to successfully
> gain recognition in order to make fine art... all he or she needs to
> be doing is *attempting* to gain that recognition.
But I have suggested that that definition is incorrect because an
artist today may have his name struck off tomorrow (viz Bouguereau).
Second, what about a painting you swear is completely idiotic but won
recognition by a small circle of "elite" critics (probably one
loud-mouth)? Do you ever believe this circle to make mistakes in
judgement? or indulge in fad art? If a work is never brought to the
attention of the public, is it non-art?
> Ok, so it can't be arbitrary... I think you're still ducking my
> question. If you made a bunch of random art splats, and another
> artist was able to paint an exact duplicate of your random
> splats--wouldn't that require some competence?
Splats are random so I don't see how you can reproduce them exactly.
Let say it is possible. Then the copyist is competent but not the
originator. (I am not avoiding answering. It is just that I don't
know what you are asking. Can you rephrase you question)
John Ng
Advocates an art renewal and the return to Classical realism
http://community.webshots.com/user/pigsmayfly
John Ng
> Perhaps you feel it gives too much power to the establishment. But on
> the other hand, it is pretty democratic--any artist who considers
> their work fine art, and wants to gain popular/elite success is (by my
> definition) making fine art. So in a weird way, the establishment
> doesn't get to determine what is fine art.
It is not as democratic as you think it is. The last art renewal at
the end of the 19C demonstrated this.
Nowadays, taught by many years of arty-fardy attitude, there are many
cockroaches crawling around the "establishment" with obsolete and
misguided attitudes of art. You have been taught, and I as well, that
the foremost thing in art is NEW, NEW, NEW. It pushes one to produce
gimmicky art, which critics believe is the same as a new idea. Art
History Books are published with late-19C art expurgated. How can you
compete with a lie grown so big?
John Ng
John Ng
We have been through this before. It is impossible to define Art
unless you define what is a Thing. Those definitions are what I
believe art should be and I believe them to more palatable to the
common one, ie what the establishment wants it to be.
John Ng
Edward G. Nilges
This itself is a lie.
Even those histories of Impressionism that favor the Impressionists
(because in fact critics like John Rewald simply liked the
Impressionists) discuss in detail the French Salon and its structure,
as well as mention Meisonnier, Bouguereau and other academics. Space
permitting these sources will reproduce examples of Salon art, as well
as other late 19th century movement examples, such as Symbolism and
the Pre-Raphaelites, that were outside the Modernist mainstream.
That's because it is impossible to understand the Impressionists and
the post-Impressionists without knowing their milieu.
However, the authors make a judgement for as I have noted elsewhere
the publishers of art books cannot, in a business sense, create a sort
of encyclopedia of art, completely "fair" in that it reproduced every
work produced by any artist in the period covered. Such a book would
be useless to its readership, who turns to an art book in order to
learn what's good, and worth limited time.
And, of course, the neo-conservatives want to simply replace the
Modernists, and in bad faith they have learned (like other
neo-conservatives and Holocaust deniers) to use the Modernist
discourse of tolerance in the interests of installing an intolerant
regime.
>
>
> John Ng
Edward G. Nilges
>
> > Ok, let me see if I understand what you're saying. Fine art is
> > something (anything?) that would take years to learn to make and that
> > you (anyone?) would pay money for?
>
> I speak only of paintings. Fine arts is something takes an amount of
> learning and skill. It is something that the majority of onlookers
> feel a sense of awe and beauty, not just in form but in colour and
> finish. It is something I would feel intrigued enough to fork out
"Finish" alone is incoherent.
Raphael's "finish" consisted of a series of translucent and
transparent glazes, that simulated previous egg-tempera pieces but
with a higher gloss that appealed to the sensibilities of his time.
He and his contemporaries painted on wood or fine-grained linen
canvases for both surfaces tend to conceal brushworks in the same way
the gesso ground of egg tempera conceals the brush work.
They also started on white, gesso grounds, same as earlier painters in
egg tempera. Their originality was greater command of the nude body
under draperies and the high gloss.
But a few years on, the artists of Venice ABANDONED what Raphael's
patrons would consider finish.
Starting on a canvas of coarse grain, the Venetians including Titian
(immortalized by Dan Ackroyd in an early SNL skit as Tit-ian)
abandoned "finish" yet persisted in "finishing" paintings according to
a new, Venetian esthetic.
Titian's paintings looked slapdash to bozos, Mani's and John's
intellectual forebears, yet it is clear that according to Titian's own
goals, which were a heightened, more Northern European emotional
effect, he worked just as hard to "finish" his paintings. Titian's
famous exclamation, "svelatura, trenta o quaranta" (glazes, thirty or
forty) makes it clear that he achieved deeper coloristic effects than
Raphael by starting with a coarse grain and a darker priming, and
using newer and more opaque whites for dramatic highlighting.
The "finish" the bourgeois is looking for is not an esthetic at all,
merely a rather incoherent set of expectations that today are derived
from TV and movies.
Indeed and in recent years, the expectations that laymen have brought
to museums (out of which they should stay without proper preparation,
in my view) have devolved to high gloss simply because cinema and art
directors have, today, cheap color reproduction techniques available
which replace the need for talented and skilled artists in their
shops.
> money without knowing who the painter is. Fine arts is NOT a thing
> that has to be told to me by books and media.
If you abandon responsible art books, then the sources of your taste
become advertising jingles, sexual cravings, and hatred and
resentment: it's as simple as that.
>
> Wide publicity given to a painting will distort how people view it. I
> am sure people will flock to see the Guernica, not because it is good
> art, but because of the high level of publicity given to it. This is
> the side-show effect. Your definition of art is simply the cause and
> measure of publicity.
>
Perhaps they are simply sickened by popular taste and commercial
pandering to inchoate instinct, and indeed flock in any direction away
from Disney. This is because Disney is and always has been a machine
for capturing and retaining intellectual property and produces for
exchange and not cultural use.
Some time ago, people wised up and realized that exchange production
favors addiction in the case of tobacco. Not too long ago,
intelligent people actually believed that smoking four packs of Camel
straights a day was a rational choice, made because of the fine
tobaccos used in Camels. But reflection on the exchange value of a
product which addicts leads one to conclude that the nugatory use
value of a pack of Camels (its ability to quell a soldier's fear or an
orphan's starvation) is much less important than its exchange value to
R. J. Reynolds, because it is a product which locks its consumers into
a cycle of unwanted but necessary consumption.
The discovery is being made that this is also true with regards to
McDonald's, and I submit that part of the art market would prefer to
addict clowns to art that demands no learning but simply is a form of
addiction to property and money one does not own, but can only look
upon. In other words, what Mani and Mr Ng claim to be the case about
the Modernist market is simply far more true for the market for
Philistine art such as Vargas and Disney.
Large owners of intellectual property produced under pressure at
Disney studios have a commercial interest in seeing that their
inventory retains its value. The traditional market for art has been
essentially Mom and Pop (or, given the predominance of gay people in
it, Pop and Pop.) The largest of the traditional dealers is small
potatoes as compared to large Hollywood studios, so they are using
their market power to convince a critical mass of bozos that art
should be conventional, narrative, and "pretty", for their inventory
has these qualities.
>
> > I'd say Bougureau is a fine artist.
>
> But according to your definition, in terms of today, he would be a
> pretty bad artist as he doesn't appear in most art history books, and
> if he did, they are disparaging statements.
>
>
> > Also notice, my definition doesn't require an artist to successfully
> > gain recognition in order to make fine art... all he or she needs to
> > be doing is *attempting* to gain that recognition.
>
> But I have suggested that that definition is incorrect because an
> artist today may have his name struck off tomorrow (viz Bouguereau).
This simply never happened in the case of Bouguereau. Instead, most
people in midcentury preferred modernist art even for purposes of
interior decoration. Therefore he was removed from the limited space
of museums but preserved. Unfortunately.
> Second, what about a painting you swear is completely idiotic but won
> recognition by a small circle of "elite" critics (probably one
> loud-mouth)? Do you ever believe this circle to make mistakes in
> judgement? or indulge in fad art? If a work is never brought to the
> attention of the public, is it non-art?
>
>
> > Ok, so it can't be arbitrary... I think you're still ducking my
> > question. If you made a bunch of random art splats, and another
> > artist was able to paint an exact duplicate of your random
> > splats--wouldn't that require some competence?
>
> Splats are random so I don't see how you can reproduce them exactly.
> Let say it is possible. Then the copyist is competent but not the
> originator. (I am not avoiding answering. It is just that I don't
> know what you are asking. Can you rephrase you question)
>
The assumption is that there is a sort of pyramid of competence, in
which the artist must meet base expectations prior to having his own
vision. This is literally taken from industrial discipline, where
everyone has to at a minimum pretend that the factory manager, in the
event of a strike, can run the machines by himself.
Unfortunately, art predates the Industrial Revolution and its implicit
organization and fragmentation of skills. This means that an artist
like Cezanne, who never mastered Salon techniques, can be first rate
because he simply abandoned a lesser goal (being a sort of second-rate
Bouguereau, painting portraits of second-rate society dames) and went
on to a higher and more important goal.
And, Cezanne was never bad at drawing per se. For example, there is
extant a Cupid plaster cast drawn by Cezanne in academic style and
technically, it is fine, only a little more passionate than the usual
academic product because Cezanne had, even prior to mastery of mere
craftsmanship (which isn't art), an insight into the analysis of form
implicit in the Salon approach.
His sneak preview of Cubism in fact was based on a complete
understanding of what Salon teachers meant by analyzing the figure in
terms of the cone, the cylinder and the cube, and today, traditional
teachers of traditional drawing use analyses of form seen in Cezanne
to teach students how to block out preparatory drawings.
But artists like Cezanne evolved the analysis of form into an
autonomous direction because geniuses, as opposed to dorks, reflect
constantly on their own work and refuse to celebrate somebody else's
game.
Mani Deli
and they ignore any rational analysis.
Picassso is considered the Jesus Christ of modern art.
Picassoholicks do not analyze gospel. They believe what they have been
told to imagine is there, rather than ever taking a close look. That
is why they rarely ever refer to the detail of any work. Like
religious fundamentalists, about the most they can do is, shout hollow
praises and go off on the details of their religious experience.
Edward G. Nilges
>
> > Ok, let me see if I understand what you're saying. Fine art is
> > something (anything?) that would take years to learn to make and that
> > you (anyone?) would pay money for?
>
> I speak only of paintings. Fine arts is something takes an amount of
> learning and skill. It is something that the majority of onlookers
> feel a sense of awe and beauty, not just in form but in colour and
> finish. It is something I would feel intrigued enough to fork out
> money without knowing who the painter is. Fine arts is NOT a thing
> that has to be told to me by books and media.
The basic error of artistic neoconservatives including Mani and John
Ng is a simple "binary opposition" between modernist art on the one
hand, and the "old masters" and their modern restoration on the other.
Both sets are defined as incoherent "family relations", where a
"family relation" is the construction of a set with no single
attribute, at least one that makes sense in straightforward artistic
or historical terms.
Instead, the set is constructed by adding element A for reason X, and
B for reason XY, and C for reason Y.
Wittgenstein's famous example of a "family relation" was "game" for no
one element of a game, skill, luck, athletic ability, etc, is common
to all that we call games: chess shares with baseball skill, and
baseball some luck with poker, but chess and poker probably have no
unifying attribute except membership in the class "games."
Basically, if an artist has the temerity to be female and especially
use her body in a way independent of a Bouguereau-inspired male gaze,
it is a safe bet that Mani will post an hysterical rant against her.
Whereas Dali's book on art and craft makes it clear that Dali is a
man's man, who (on the same page) recommends that the artist get laid
(because this will improve his art) but not get laid (because as we
know men's creative mana is destroyed by the Feminine.) Dali was
clinically insane in a way that Max Ernst and Pablo Picasso was not,
and his later life was sordid in the extreme as a result, and I fear
this is what attracts Mani's admiration: negativity.
But there is an even deeper problem.
Even if we restrict our attention to the "old masters" we realize that
many artistic neoconservatives may be so ignorant of art history as to
believe that the "old masters" is at all a meaningful art-historical
concept.
Within artists listed as "old masters" we find in fact Byzantine
church painters, the early Renaissance painters in egg tempera, the
High Renaissance masters, who combined egg tempera on panel with oils,
the Flemish masters who used a completely different style of drawing
and a harder composition, the Venetians who used chiaroscuro for the
first time in Western art, the 17th century Mannerists who distorted
for emotional effect in the Baroque style, the birth of French
classicism in Poussin and Lorraine, the 18th century rococo, the
Revolutionary neo-classicism of David and Ingres, etc.
There is no common thread.
It is not "realism", since Byzantine and early Renaissance masters did
not at all paint "realistically" in the sense of positioning
themselves in front of a model or scene in a three-dimensional space
understood in vanishing-point perspective.
Instead, the "space" of a Byzantine crucifixion is a text in which the
painter was expected to not so much position, as identify for a
primarily illiterate population, symbols including Christ's sacrifice.
Nor was El Greco's work "realistic."
The "skill" is so abstract as to be useless. Actual artists of this
period such as Veronese were actually more concerned with iconographic
issues: Veronese, if memory serves, was hauled before the Italian
Inquisition for the Political Incorrectness of including obviously
German figures in a painting of the Last Supper. There was a set of
stunts, as I mentioned in 1998 and David Hockney independent of me
said in 2000.
But these, except in offensively Eurocentric terms, were no more
skillful "skills" than the ability of Islamic artists to use
abstraction to decorate walls, and arguably the Islamic artists were
more imaginative in their use of repeating patterns.
Once you decide upon a pleasing pattern, it takes no more and no less
skill to apply this abstraction than it takes to paint a Poussin, for
in both cases you've learned the tricks of the trade, whether in
making a repeatably applied tracing for the abstract work, or, in the
case of Poussin, a fullsized cartoon (to check this cartoon for
accuracy of drawing, when you have chosen vanishing point "realism",
you look at it in a mirror: the reversal will reveal any flaws of
drawing, and this is probably a trick Hockney mentions.)
I conclude that Old Master is in truth a political designation, not of
art, but of a vector of Western physical power that appeared in the
Byzantine succession to the Roman empire and in the rise of Italy as a
commercial power in the Treicento. The vector moved north to France.
It did not track physical power with exactitude because of
interference with national culture. England and America (before the
1950s) produced less than their fair share of first rate musicians and
visual artists because by the time the vector of physical power
reached England, a likely lad could make more money by entering trade
or industry, and this was even more true in America in the early 19th
century (Samuel F. B. Morse, the inventor of the telepgraph, wanted
actually To Paint but was discouraged by the fact that Americans of
his time, like Americans today, care little about art.)
The notion of the Old Master was formed as a political reaction not
merely to the first Impressionist shows of the 1850s, the infamous
Salon des Refuses, in which Napoleon II was persuaded by Courbet and
others to at least display the works rejected by his idiot Salon.
For the bourgeois who visited the Salon des Refuses with their
mistresses to gape and laugh were members of a semi-dictatorship whose
authority, like that of the Russian Tsar, was limited only by
bungling.
In the growing print media, these clowns learned silly ways of
responding and thinking that were lampooned by Gustav Flaubert in a
tongue in cheek set of instructions for "right thinking": children:
call them adorable: the Army: praise it: writers: suspect them, etc.
This was in reaction to a succession of widely spaced revolutions in
1789, 1830 and 1848. In each, a segment of the population (middle
class landowners in 1789, landowners and factory owners in 1830, and
factory owners and speculators in 1848) had been given new social and
economic rights which they did not want to share with people under
them.
As Flaubert saw, these people were profoundly insecure and defensive,
New Rich, rather like Sunbelt billionaires in the USA today.
Their reactions to the Salon des Refuses and political events were
tracked and coded by internal motors installed by the media. In bad
conscience, they accused flaneurs and impressionists of following,
slavishly, schools and movements which commencing with the Salon des
Refuses were presented breathlessly by the popular press in order to
fill space.
Because the Paris press represented the movements with names it more
or less made up, the bourgeois papa was confronted over his petit
dejueuner with a succession of Impressionists, post-Impressionists,
Fauves (wild beasts) and Cubists. Psychologically he transferred his
conventionality and obeisance to Napoleon II and successor governments
to the artists who were in fact and like Cezanne, engaged in what
Cezanne called "mes recherches."
People then and now with damaged internal motors reason that if an
artist like Cezanne has an insight, such as the way the color and form
of a distant mountain are just convenient names for its colorform, the
man has either made up a vision like the village imbecile, or is
following a sinister plot.
Of course, the historical facts are these: Napoleon II, while we
Americans were engaged in our Civil War, invaded Mexico in order to
re-establish French dominance in America. The Mexicans overthrew them
and killed the French puppet emperor Maxmilian and the French were
completely eradicated after our own Appomatox.
This alone and even in 19th century was world class folly and
bestiality, fully supported not by Impressionists but by
Impressionist-hating bourgeois papas, as well as by Meisonnier and
Bouguereau, but there is more.
Ten years later, completely s*t out of ideas on how to run France even
to his own advantage and the advantage of his pals, Boney II declared
war on a resurgent Germany. Big mistake, for the Germans under
Bismarck had transformed themselves into a major can of kick-ass. The
French were soundly defeated at Sedan with great loss of life, and the
Impressionists were making themselves quite scarce lest they be cannon
fodder (as it was Alfred Sisley got killed.)
As a result of the defeat at Sedan, Paris was beseiged. The workers
of Paris had had it, like the draft rioters shown in Gangs of New
York, with rich men's wars and poor men's fights, and revolted,
forming the Commune. This was put down by the aristocracy and
bourgeois with great slaughter: for years afterward, there was a labor
shortage in Paris and its *banlieue* because all the skilled tradesmen
had been shot.
The basic problem was that even though a critical mass of the French
population had benefited greatly from the revolutions of 1789, 1830
and 1848, they wanted to keep their gains for themselves, like the
student loan evaders of the 1970s who now preach "personal
responsibility".
They therefore viewed art, as a recreational, secondary pursuit, as a
zone for the emotional self-indulgence of celebrating, not so much
"old masters" as the society in which they supposed the old masters
worked.
The realism was also the possibility to gaze on clear social
subordination. Rather like modern Americans who watch masterpiece
theater and upstairs, downstairs, a false consciousness celebrates
what in actuality was a brutal Edwardian society...in which one false
move, downstairs, would send you to tramp and beg, with a "bad
character" that meant you were unemployable.
Bouguereau's simpering orphans and nude gals are la vielle France, in
which women know their place and the wayfaring orphan is at best an
occasion for a sigh, useless pity and a crust of bread. In fact, as
Engels described the similar poverty in Manchester, it was literally
unendurable, as seen, again, in Gangs of New York.
The Bourguereau mythos is that the poor have inner spiritual resources
such that they are really indestructible and strengthened, benefited
from no money and no shoes. The reality as described by Engels is
that in fact the poor only are numerous because they reproduce
themselves and die like flies, making room for more poor people.
I am reminded in this connection of modern mawkish sentimentality in
white media about black grannies and black churches in which the
strength of the black community is supposed, by the Chicago Tribune,
to reside. We are invited to engage in Bouguereau like fantasies
which also perform the function of silencing questions, by white
people, as to why (for example) there was a surge in black employment
as CPAs in the 1970s (as a result of affirmative action and EEO)
followed by a collapse that was the direct result of the attack on
affirmative action. Or the brutal question of mere life expectancy.
The Bourguereau revival is occuring, I believe, because in many way
America has become the Second Empire. Like Franch of the 1860s, we
are convinced we are the only "superpower" when in fact this
proposition has not been "smoke tested" in a full scale war. And, the
Internet is rife with bourgeois papas who above all must emit the
genuine Political Correctness of modern America, a sort of centrist
hypocrisy which is completely averse to the challenge posed by genuine
art.
This hypocrisy is the abstraction of tolerance used as a gesture free
of content, and an unpleasantly nasty softness seen in George Bush.
It is hag ridden by the physical fact that Americans consume too much
(except of course for the growing numbers of impoverished Americans)
and that were poisoning half the planet.
The Second Empire manufactured the idea of the strutting, foolish,
frantic Frog and only its artists saved what gloire there was on tap.
The American Empire is manufacturing the image of the strutting, fat
(or uselessly aerobicised) American. An American journalist of a
simpler and more honest time, that during which we occupied Germany in
the 1940s, nonetheless made an apt description of the Ugly American in
the form of occupation GIs who raped German women: there he stands in
his bulging clothes, seeing little, understanding less.
How many artists, who have joined the service to get money for art
school, will have to die like Sisley or Apollinaire in the next war in
order to make not art but CNN visuals?
YOU MUST KNOW WHERE YOU END AND THE WORLD BEGINS - Jenny Holzer
Erik A. Mattila
> I say you are in a state of postal diarrhoea.
> Thur
Or, perhaps, Ed was vaccinated with a phonograph needle.
Erik
Secundra
so far I do feel a need to point towards the abysmal debating skills
of these guys Mani and John Ng. Time and time again they respond to
points with statements which make it obvious that they have either not
read, or not understood, those points. A couple of examples-
Ethan’s definition of FINE ART:
"Art that was created in hopes of
gaining recognition and acceptance by the fine art establishment
(i.e., critics, galleries, etc.), or art that has gained such
recognition."
John’s response:
So using your definition, what is art today may
never be art tomorrow, just like Bouguereau (in your view). Your
definition includes the fact that if I am a very powerful player with
lots of media friends, then I become promoted and therefore become an
artist. Paul McCartney and Warhol are such persons whose otherwise
lousy work becomes something.
Ethan says “created *in hopes* of gaining recognition and
acceptance”. John completely misses this crucial point, and
consequently looks very stupid to the onlooker as he builds on this
mistake for the rest of his post.
it gets worse though - when Ethan politely points this out.
check out John’s response:
Ethan:
Also notice, my definition doesn't require an artist to successfully
gain recognition in order to make fine art... all he or she needs to
be doing is *attempting* to gain that recognition.
John:
But I have suggested that that definition is incorrect because an
artist today may have his name struck off tomorrow (viz Bouguereau).
Second, what about a painting you swear is completely idiotic but won
recognition by a small circle of "elite" critics (probably one
loud-mouth)? Do you ever believe this circle to make mistakes in
judgement? or indulge in fad art? If a work is never brought to the
attention of the public, is it non-art?
He *still* doesn’t get it! – he probably still
doesn’t now.
John – please - Read the above statements. Read your responses.
Read ‘em again. Repeat this exercise until you see what a fool
you are making of yourself.
More trouble with the definition:
Ethan:
Here's my definition of fine art: "Art that was created in hopes of
gaining recognition and acceptance by the fine art establishment
Mani:
A definition of a word can't contain the word it defines.
(Andrew D also makes this point)
Ethan was defining the term “fine art”, not the term
“art”. His *whole point* in bringing up that definition
was to make the distinction between the two, remember?!:
Ethan:
Is Disney's work art? Certainly by my definition of art. And I think
most people would accept my definition of art (which I defined in an
earlier posting) is *reasonable*, even if they don't think it is the
*best* definition. Is it fine art? I don't think so.
So, apart from the fact that these people have missed fundamental
aspects of the very argument they are engaged in (again) we have the
word “art” used in a definition of “fine art”.
Is this a problem? Well, www.dictionary.com gives this definition of
the term “prime number”:
Prime number (Arith.), a number which is exactly divisible by no
number except itself or unity, as 5, 7, 11
yes, it contains the word “number” – good enough for
me
oh, another ‘gem’:
Ethan asks:
would you then think that the oft-mentioned Bouguereau is incompetent
because he doesn't achieve astraction?
John responds:
WRONG. Abstraction is as ancient as when Man started painting.
-someone asks a *question*, this guy responds with the word
“wrong”, in capitals… what can I say?
An inability to read and comprehend the opposing viewpoint is the one
thing that will really hamper the progress of a discussion.
This one is stuck in the mud.
Ethan, you are one patient man!
Secundra
it on the preview
Apologies & here's the readable version:
I have no intention of joining the debate here but reading this thread
so far I do feel a need to point towards the abysmal debating skills
of these guys Mani and John Ng. Time and time again they respond to
points with statements which make it obvious that they have either not
read, or not understood, those points. A couple of examples-
Ethan's definition of FINE ART:
"Art that was created in hopes of
gaining recognition and acceptance by the fine art establishment
(i.e., critics, galleries, etc.), or art that has gained such
recognition."
John's response:
So using your definition, what is art today may
never be art tomorrow, just like Bouguereau (in your view). Your
definition includes the fact that if I am a very powerful player with
lots of media friends, then I become promoted and therefore become an
artist. Paul McCartney and Warhol are such persons whose otherwise
lousy work becomes something.
Ethan says "created *in hopes* of gaining recognition and
acceptance". John completely misses this crucial point, and
consequently looks very stupid to the onlooker as he builds on this
mistake for the rest of his post.
it gets worse though - when Ethan politely points this out.
check out John's response:
Ethan:
Also notice, my definition doesn't require an artist to successfully
gain recognition in order to make fine art... all he or she needs to
be doing is *attempting* to gain that recognition.
John:
But I have suggested that that definition is incorrect because an
artist today may have his name struck off tomorrow (viz Bouguereau).
Second, what about a painting you swear is completely idiotic but won
recognition by a small circle of "elite" critics (probably one
loud-mouth)? Do you ever believe this circle to make mistakes in
judgement? or indulge in fad art? If a work is never brought to the
attention of the public, is it non-art?
He *still* doesn't get it! - he probably still doesn't now.
John - please - Read the above statements. Read your responses.
Read 'em again. Repeat this exercise until you see what a fool
you are making of yourself.
More trouble with the definition:
Ethan:
Here's my definition of fine art: "Art that was created in hopes of
gaining recognition and acceptance by the fine art establishment
Mani:
A definition of a word can't contain the word it defines.
(Andrew D also makes this point)
Ethan was defining the term "fine art", not the term
"art". His *whole point* in bringing up that definition
was to make the distinction between the two, remember?!:
Ethan:
Is Disney's work art? Certainly by my definition of art. And I think
most people would accept my definition of art (which I defined in an
earlier posting) is *reasonable*, even if they don't think it is the
*best* definition. Is it fine art? I don't think so.
So, apart from the fact that these people have missed fundamental
aspects of the very argument they are engaged in (again) we have the
word "art" used in a definition of "fine art".
Is this a problem? Well, www.dictionary.com gives this definition of
the term "prime number":
Prime number (Arith.), a number which is exactly divisible by no
number except itself or unity, as 5, 7, 11
yes, it contains the word "number" - good enough for me
oh, another "gem":
Ethan asks:
would you then think that the oft-mentioned Bouguereau is incompetent
because he doesn't achieve astraction?
John responds:
WRONG. Abstraction is as ancient as when Man started painting.
-someone asks a *question*, this guy responds with the word
"wrong", in capitals - what can I say?
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Erik A. Mattila" <emat...@oco.net> wrote in message
news:3E4912DF...@oco.net...
--
I wish that baby Jesus had never been born - Samaritans
Mani Deli
We know what art is.
All Modern Academic artists can draw like masters they just don't
choose to.
Anyone who thinks most Modern Academic Art requires almost no skill
just doesn't understand the language of modern art.
Anyone who hasn't attended a Modern Art Academy and gotten a degree is
not really qualified to discuss matters pertaining to the subject.
All Artzy Fartzies understand the language of modern art but must
always avoid explaining what they claim to understand.
All artwork not conforming to the language of Modern Art is kitsch,
commercial or illustration and likely all of these.
Anyone who wastes time learning to draw and paint in a classical
manner will produce nothing but a repeat of the past and candy boxes.
Anyone who says negative things or dares to laugh at any work of the
founders of Modern Academic Art, Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse, or AE and
any artist who produced rectangles, etc. doesn't know anything about
art history and is definitely a neurotic bitter philistine.
Most of those who openly express a dislike for Modern Academic Art are
also Nazi and Hitler sympathizers.
Mani Deli
"Today, museum boards are just another way to enter high society
rather than a chance to escape from it. They are largely the purview
of wealthy socialites and captains of industry with little imagination
or vision, who nonetheless, and usually for not a lot of money, have a
big say in a museum's affairs."
---no kidding! Wonder how long this reviewer will last at the job.
Chris
I hate to say this, but with respect to the mistakes you attribute to John
and Mani, you are equally bad - if not more so. Mt comments are inserted
below.
"Secundra" <secu...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:9242e900.03021...@posting.google.com...
> ugh - Google replaced much of my punctuation with codes & I didnt spot
> it on the preview
\> Ethan's definition of FINE ART:
> "Art that was created in hopes of
> gaining recognition and acceptance by the fine art establishment
> (i.e., critics, galleries, etc.), or art that has gained such
> recognition."
>
> John's response:
> So using your definition, what is art today may
> never be art tomorrow, just like Bouguereau (in your view). Your
> definition includes the fact that if I am a very powerful player with
> lots of media friends, then I become promoted and therefore become an
> artist. Paul McCartney and Warhol are such persons whose otherwise
> lousy work becomes something.
>
Secundra's analysis:
> Ethan says "created *in hopes* of gaining recognition and
> acceptance". John completely misses this crucial point, and
> consequently looks very stupid to the onlooker as he builds on this
> mistake for the rest of his post.
>
Secundra's error:
John points out that there is a good deal of art that was created in the
hopes of having it accepted as fine art, and art that at one point was
accepted as fine art, that is not now considered to be so. Hence Ethan's
definition is not a practical one; that is, it is his alone, and not
relevant to the world at large.
>
> Ethan:
> Also notice, my definition doesn't require an artist to successfully
> gain recognition in order to make fine art... all he or she needs to
> be doing is *attempting* to gain that recognition.
>
> John:
> But I have suggested that that definition is incorrect because an
> artist today may have his name struck off tomorrow (viz Bouguereau).
> Second, what about a painting you swear is completely idiotic but won
> recognition by a small circle of "elite" critics (probably one
> loud-mouth)? Do you ever believe this circle to make mistakes in
> judgement? or indulge in fad art? If a work is never brought to the
> attention of the public, is it non-art?
>
> He *still* doesn't get it! - he probably still doesn't now.
>
> John - please - Read the above statements. Read your responses.
> Read 'em again. Repeat this exercise until you see what a fool
> you are making of yourself.
>
And Secundra still fails to analyse the issue properly.
>
> More trouble with the definition:
>
> Ethan:
> Here's my definition of fine art: "Art that was created in hopes of
> gaining recognition and acceptance by the fine art establishment
>
> Mani:
> A definition of a word can't contain the word it defines.
>
> (Andrew D also makes this point)
>
> Ethan was defining the term "fine art", not the term
> "art". His *whole point* in bringing up that definition
> was to make the distinction between the two, remember?!:
>
> Ethan:
> Is Disney's work art? Certainly by my definition of art. And I think
> most people would accept my definition of art (which I defined in an
> earlier posting) is *reasonable*, even if they don't think it is the
> *best* definition. Is it fine art? I don't think so.
>
> So, apart from the fact that these people have missed fundamental
> aspects of the very argument they are engaged in (again) we have the
> word "art" used in a definition of "fine art".
> Is this a problem? Well, www.dictionary.com gives this definition of
> the term "prime number":
>
> Prime number (Arith.), a number which is exactly divisible by no
> number except itself or unity, as 5, 7, 11
>
> yes, it contains the word "number" - good enough for me
>
Secundra's error:
The definition for prime number does not depend on the phrase "prime
number", only on the word "number".The definition of fine art as given would
be equivalent to defining prime number as "an element of the set of prime
numbers", or "a number recognized by mathematicians to be prime".
>
> oh, another "gem":
>
> Ethan asks:
> would you then think that the oft-mentioned Bouguereau is incompetent
> because he doesn't achieve astraction?
>
> John responds:
> WRONG. Abstraction is as ancient as when Man started painting.
>
> -someone asks a *question*, this guy responds with the word
> "wrong", in capitals - what can I say?
>
Probably that English isn't his first language.
> An inability to read and comprehend the opposing viewpoint is the one
> thing that will really hamper the progress of a discussion.
>
I'd say an inability to think is an even greater impediment, particularly
when it is attached to an over-estimation of intellectual capabilities.
> This one is stuck in the mud.
>
> Ethan, you are one patient man!
Secundra, you're one silly person :)
Chris
Mani Deli
little more than a giant political cartoon predicting the seriousness
of times to follow. Great foresight is attributed to this work
although by the late 1930's, it would have been rather difficult to
predict anything other than a grim future.
A key feature of "Guernica" is Picasso's famous bull. It has been
said to symbolize anything and everything, and is without a doubt a
creature whose appendage surpassed that of any later Picasso bull.
Guernica is dominated by Picasso's flair for provocative drawing
errors. it also contains those accidental drippy passages and
occasional splats which seriously anticipated the future pure splat
masterpieces of Pollock. "Guernica" symbolizes the horrors of war,
unlike Pollock's work which symbolizes nothing.
Truly horrible painting can always be said to successfully represent
war as both are truly horrible.
Mani Deli
<sculpt...@ethanham.com> wrote:
>> When Fox produces work on a level of a 12 year old which fulfills
>> what he wanted (whatever that really means) it doesn't mean he is
>> artistically competent.
>
>Ok, I'd put forth the same question I asked John. If you take a 12 year
>old's painting and are able to paint an *exact* copy, wouldn't that take
>skill/competence?
It would take a great amount of tedium for Fox to make an exact copy
of his work. Should he succeed both would look just as bad. Do you
believe that there is such a thing as skill and competence?
>>
>> > It
>> >seemed to me Picasso was being labeled incompetent because of the
>> >style he worked in... and it seems a mistake to me to judge a person
>> >working in style X in terms of style Y.
>>
>> It has nothing to do with style realism or abstraction. Picasso is
>> incompetent in craftsmanship and technique; as are the majority of
>> Modern Academic Artists..
>
>Hmmm, maybe.
Really?
> But could it also be that the issues they are wanting to
>address in their art are orthogonal to what you would define as
>"craftsmanship" and "technique"?
Could be; I haven't defined these qualities. However whatever they
are, by referring to actual pictures I try show that Picasso is
incompetent in craftsmanship and technique because of their juvenile
quality.
> What I'm really putting forward is a
>relativist's view... that we take a person's art on its own terms. That's
>not to say we can't *criticize* someone art--but to me, the interesting
>criticism is, "What was Picasso's art trying to say? Did it accomplish
>that?" Rather than "Picasso sucks."
So, What was Picasso's art trying to say? I bet you can't tell me. One
usually judges art work by its appearance. The artist's main objective
is to attract the viewer this means. In my opinion Picasso fails.
Picasso can't draw well and I expect better from someone who is
considered a master.
Edward G. Nilges
As a pragma, judging art using authorities is an unavoidable way
>
>
> More trouble with the definition:
>
> Ethan:
> Here's my definition of fine art: "Art that was created in hopes of
> gaining recognition and acceptance by the fine art establishment
>
> Mani:
> A definition of a word can't contain the word it defines.
What part of "recursion" does Mani not understand?
In the theory of groups you define "integer" abstractly as the set of
elements (numbers, addition, subtraction).
Addition is defined abstractly as that operation such that there is a
unique zero element such that n+0, where n is any number, equals n.
Multiplication is defined abstractly as that operation such that there
is a unique unity element such that n*1, where n is any number, equals
n.
The final part of the definition defines number as the set containing
0, 1, and all results of adding 1 to a ... number.
Circularity is used at several points but the definition precisely
defines the integers!
Similarly, you can define an artist as either a French guy with a
beret and a hot girlfriend, or a guy who wants to be like a French guy
with a beret and a hot girlfriend. The definition is wrong, but
coherent.
>
> (Andrew D also makes this point)
>
> Ethan was defining the term "fine art", not the term
> "art". His *whole point* in bringing up that definition
> was to make the distinction between the two, remember?!:
>
> Ethan:
> Is Disney's work art? Certainly by my definition of art. And I think
> most people would accept my definition of art (which I defined in an
> earlier posting) is *reasonable*, even if they don't think it is the
> *best* definition. Is it fine art? I don't think so.
>
Not in a restricted sense.
Real commercial artists like Norman Rockwell are at pains to
disambiguate themselves from "artists" when context indicates that
"artist" is being used with ordinary precision.
When "artist" is used in ordinary language with ordinary precision,
the ansence of the qualifier "commercial" in "commercial artist" means
that the FIRST image that comes to a contemporary mind is not some guy
in Anaheim working as an "imagineer."
The image is instead a French guy with a beret who makes his hot
girlfriend miserable because he can't get paid for his work, and she
has to work at Le Starbucks pulling lattes.
That is, the ordinary usage implies that the artist, in order to
pursue his artistic vision, willingly bales from the day to day rat
race and its struggle not only for existence but for a surplus of
material goods.
Ordinary usage is misleading, but since the 19th century, a "binary
opposition" has existed between the default meaning of Fine Artist and
the additional nondefault meaning of commercial artist.
Binary oppositions aren't "bad", and it is not a hip, swinging
Postmodern Gesture to saw, well, some guy who pursues an individual
vision is no better than some guy who punches in at Disney.
Instead it occludes a genuine choice, and treats hacks like Vargas the
same as guys like Chuck Close who are free to change their style and
conduct Cezannesque recherches.
The problem with the corporate-sponsored advancement of the idea that
the intellectual property they own is just as good as property in the
diminishing public domain is that it deceives artists into thinking
that they are not making a serious life decision when they decide to
become commercial artists, or instead to risk following their own
vision.
Furthermore, the related problem for example in cinema, with the
*auteur* theory is that it fails to see that for a director to be a
successful *auteur*, like Coppolla wanted to be and in actuality has
failed to be, the entrepreneural director has in the absence of
community support for the arts to cultivate an outlook and skills that
run counter to art.
For a theory of art at all based on Spinoza's epistemology would
imply, I believe, a strong realism in which the competing *auteurs*
would have to agree that they are part of and seeking the same
abstract Quality.
Philosophy is being madly in love with wisdom, not wisdom and lunch:
art is being obsessed with art, not art and auto insurance.
In an ideal world they would be compelled to instinctively form a
commune or collective because, as Spinozists, they would want to
converge on Quality as rapidly as possible.
They would NOT muck around the Phillipine jungles fighting Universal,
battling the media and driving Marty Sheen batshit while treating
Marlon Brando like a Tiki god.
Coppola showed how in the context of the same economy that had,
shortly before, produced the Vietnam war, making a movie about it
would be an identical journey in which the cast and crew would have to
paddle against a current in an identical Heart of Darkness.
Whereas Goya got to make his Disasters of War in reasonably
comfortable circumstances and did not have to fight for the privilege.
To make public art, Francis had to deal with stresses that were only
present in traditional art in the making of murals. These stresses
have made his later works into works that accentuate individual
struggle and silence social criticism. Note the difference both
between Godfather I (made before Apocalypse Now) and the subsequent
Godfathers, and the difference between the subsequent Godfathers and
The Sopranos.
The Sopranos has caused several commentators to note that today,
ordinary successful people in America are often either nuts or
criminal, or both (American Beauty made this point as well.)
Starting with Godfather II, the movies instead made gangstas
glamourous because Al Pacino (who is better looking than Tony Soprano)
has the audience's sympathies.
This is because an entrepreneur with power to make and break careers
is continually exposed to the worst in people.
Roob
> Picasso's famous "Dove of Peace", series which looks like scrawl
> suited for the back of a brown paper bag,
>
> http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?aid=565967&item=320901
>
> Politicos as well as many critics thought it would become a universal
> logo symbolizing peace, but the public didn't see it that way.
> ...no skill no art!
>
> Want to get away from the indecipherable imbecilities and absurd pretensions of the modern art establishment?
>
> Check out my web page http://www3.sympatico.ca/manideli/
who said this dove of peace shit was good, yo?
Roob
> > >If your position is "I am an island in my opinion," (my interpretation)
> then
> > >why particpate in discussion?
> >
> > I presume you have no opinions.
>
> Oh no, I have opinions! :) I'm just open to them changing. If there was
> nothing you could say that would effect what I think, I wouldn't be
> interested in chatting with you. What I find interesting is learning some
> new stuff, having my thoughts refined through being challenged, and
> re-evaluating whether I might be off-track on some view I currently hold.
>
> > >> I expect great art to reach somewhat beyond the abilities of an
> > >> average 12 year old
> > >
> > >Well, I would put forth that perhaps it does--just not on the axis you're
> > >judging it by.
> >
> > Fine, does that mean you have an opinion?
>
> On Picasso? No strongly held view on whether his art is good or not, though
> clearly he has had a huge impact & influence, so by that measure I think he
> was successful/effective. Frankly, my art history is a bit weak--especially
> outside of sculpture.
>
> I much more interested in the meta-issues here--i.e., how does one frame a
> discussion about what is good art, what is fine art, what is high art, etc.
> Also, I would strongly argue against anyone who is trying to exclude a
> particular style from being art.
>
> So as to not be a total weenie, I'll tell you my personal feelings (not so
> much thoughts) about Picasso. When deciding whether I like a work or not, I
> don't usually approach it intellectually. For me it really whether the
> piece moves me or not. A fair number of Picasso's pieces give me a
> emotional lift, including your example piece of his with the girl. Maybe my
> approach to art is analogous to "sexiness" in the way that it is
> visceral--i.e., beauty doesn't necessarily correlate to how sexy I find
> someone.
>
> Anyway, it doesn't really matter to me if people agree with me or not on
> what art I like... I don't take it to be an objective truth.
>
> > >> And why not address the drawing and tell us what that baby's leg
> > >> really attached to?
> > >
> > >I'm not arguing that the painting is realistic.
> >
> > But it is!
>
> You know for a fact that Picasso was trying to portray the subjects
> realistically? What is your source?
>
> http://www.ethanham.com
Frankly your art history is a little weak? you only know sculpture?
then you might know of a sculptor named PICASSO you dumb shit.
Secundra
> Secundra;
>
> I hate to say this, but with respect to the mistakes you attribute to John
> and Mani, you are equally bad - if not more so.
at least that is some concession to the truth of my observations!
"equally bad - if not more so"? - read and decide:
> \> Ethan's definition of FINE ART:
> > "Art that was created in hopes of
> > gaining recognition and acceptance by the fine art establishment
> > (i.e., critics, galleries, etc.), or art that has gained such
> > recognition."
> >
> > John's response:
> > So using your definition, what is art today may
> > never be art tomorrow, just like Bouguereau (in your view). Your
> > definition includes the fact that if I am a very powerful player with
> > lots of media friends, then I become promoted and therefore become an
> > artist. Paul McCartney and Warhol are such persons whose otherwise
> > lousy work becomes something.
> >
>
> Secundra's analysis:
> > Ethan says "created *in hopes* of gaining recognition and
> > acceptance". John completely misses this crucial point, and
> > consequently looks very stupid to the onlooker as he builds on this
> > mistake for the rest of his post.
> >
>
> Secundra's error:
>
> John points out that there is a good deal of art that was created in the
> hopes of having it accepted as fine art, and art that at one point was
> accepted as fine art, that is not now considered to be so. Hence Ethan's
> definition is not a practical one; that is, it is his alone, and not
> relevant to the world at large.
---
*John does NOT make the point you have just made, Chris*
I am not interested in defending Ethan's definition or its worth in
practical application. I am pointing out that his definition was
fundamentally misunderstood when it was criticised by John.
Let's be clear:
John said:
So using your definition, what is art today may
> > never be art tomorrow
Not so - Ethan's definition allows that any work created with the
intention of gaining recognition may be termed "fine art" - he says
NOTHING about it losing that status and is at pains to point out that
the degree of acceptance and recognition has no bearing on its having
that status.
John's point about Ethan's definition is in error. He makes many other
points based on this error. It is as simple as that.
---
> >
> > Ethan:
> > Also notice, my definition doesn't require an artist to successfully
> > gain recognition in order to make fine art... all he or she needs to
> > be doing is *attempting* to gain that recognition.
> >
> > John:
> > But I have suggested that that definition is incorrect because an
> > artist today may have his name struck off tomorrow (viz Bouguereau).
> > Second, what about a painting you swear is completely idiotic but won
> > recognition by a small circle of "elite" critics (probably one
> > loud-mouth)? Do you ever believe this circle to make mistakes in
> > judgement? or indulge in fad art? If a work is never brought to the
> > attention of the public, is it non-art?
> >
> > He *still* doesn't get it! - he probably still doesn't now.
> >
> > John - please - Read the above statements. Read your responses.
> > Read 'em again. Repeat this exercise until you see what a fool
> > you are making of yourself.
> >
>
> And Secundra still fails to analyse the issue properly.
---
I am not trying to analyse the issue under discussion. I am raising
the separate issue of John's poor comprehension.
---
My main point was to show that Mani and Andrew have taken Ethan's
definition of "fine art" to be a definition of "art", when he actually
presented the definition in order to make that very distinction.
As to the question of whether his definition is valid regarding its
relying on the very word it is trying to define - I see your point. It
was my belief that, to echo your first line, Ethan's definition for
"Fine Art" does not depend on the phrase "Fine Art", only on the word
"art". So I used the "prime number" and "number" analogy.
That was, however, too simplistic an approach because I cannot say
that Ethan's definition does not *contain* the word it defines -
unfortunately it *does* contain the phrase "fine art"! (there it is -
"fine art establishment") Here I have been at fault.
I guess the next question would be to ask does it *depend* on that
phrase? Could it be stated without using it?
---
>
> >
> > oh, another "gem":
> >
> > Ethan asks:
> > would you then think that the oft-mentioned Bouguereau is incompetent
> > because he doesn't achieve astraction?
> >
> > John responds:
> > WRONG. Abstraction is as ancient as when Man started painting.
> >
> > -someone asks a *question*, this guy responds with the word
> > "wrong", in capitals - what can I say?
> >
>
> Probably that English isn't his first language.
---
hmmm... well, he certainly knows he is responding to a *question*
here. In response he presents the word "wrong", in capitals, as a
stand-alone statement. Hardly the actions of someone unsure of that
word's meaning.
Can "wrong" be a valid response to *any* question? I don't think so.
OK, OK... taking your speculation into consideration perhaps we can
make a guess that John's aggressive response here would be best taken
to mean that he found fault in something of the basis of the question
itself and so was unable to answer it. If this was his position why
did he jump on the question so aggressively? Not a good way to
progress a discussion - which is what I am posting about.
as a 'side effect' to these 3 posts (my original, your response, and
this one) we have actually gone a little way towards neutralizing some
of the deeply unhelpful hysteria emanating from these guys.
This should not be necessary. If they could take more time over, and
show more respect for, the opinions of others they would surely become
more persuasive themselves. As it is they come across as something
akin to children screaming at the top of their voices while cupping
their hands over their ears.
---
> Secundra, you're one silly person :)
are you serious?
Secundra
Ethan:
Here's my definition of fine art: "Art that was created in hopes of
gaining recognition and acceptance by the fine art establishment
Chris:
The definition of fine art as given would
> > be equivalent to defining prime number as "an element of the set of prime
> > numbers", or "a number recognized by mathematicians to be prime".
have you not followed Ethan's simple defintion either?
Your first 'eqivalent' provides a somewhat uneasy comparison, but I
can certainly see what you are getting at.
Your *second* 'equivalent' really does make me wonder if you too have
completely failed to grasp Ethan's meaning.
*Ethan's definition of fine art does not depend on whether or not a
work receives recognition*
how many times does that point have to be made?
Yes, I brought up this dubious 'prime numbers' thing - you have stuck
with it, for good or bad, in order to illustrate your point - that
helps keep the discussion focused. But do I have a point here about
you missing the basic meaning of Ethan's definition?
Rick Taylor
> One doesn't need to know a damned thing about art history in order to
> see that a hand in a picture looks like its done by an eight year old.
Van Gogh?
--
Rick Taylor - rickt...@speakeasy.net - {exile} - ex...@speakeasy.net
In a universe of free choice, unrestrained by divine tutelage, received
dominant ideas, or unshakable norms of "civilised" behavior, one can
do anything one chooses. {Free Noise Manifesto}
Mani Deli
"The problem we all live with"
http://www.art.com/asp/sp.asp?PD=10090991&RFID=554495#
The painting says it all.
Paul Mesken
wrote:
>Rockwell at his very best:
>
>"The problem we all live with"
>
>http://www.art.com/asp/sp.asp?PD=10090991&RFID=554495#
>
Yes, I like the rhythm of this painting. Rockwell was quite a maestro,
one of the best painters the world has ever seen. I have the sketches
and studies for this painting in my Rockwell book, it's interesting to
see how he played with the spatial relationships to finally achieve
this iconic piece of art.
Mani Deli
"I don't think that what modernists produce is best described as
"self-expression". Most of it doesn't express anything at all, or if
it does, it is something trivial like, "This is what green looks
like," or, "I'm able to pull the wool over people's eyes," or
"Anything I say is art, is art."
This notion comes from the idea that the most "sincere", "pure", and
"real" expressions are those which arise spontaneously from the
subconscious without any intervening thought, skill, mechanism,
technique, or labor. The truth is quite the other way. Without the
proper means (technique, thought, labor, etc.), the intended ends
cannot be reached. Eliminating the means doesn't make the ends easier
to achieve, it makes them harder or impossible to reach.
If you want to see "pure expression" without any skill or planning
then don't look at modern art, listen to the screaming of an upset
baby."
take a look at his website.
http://www.goodart.org/art.htm
Paul Mesken
wrote:
> Brian Yoder wrote
>
>"I don't think that what modernists produce is best described as
>"self-expression". Most of it doesn't express anything at all, or if
>it does, it is something trivial like, "This is what green looks
>like,"
LOL! Perhaps I should sell my test boards, after all : they make great
color fields ;-)
>If you want to see "pure expression" without any skill or planning
>then don't look at modern art, listen to the screaming of an upset
>baby."
>
>take a look at his website.
>
>http://www.goodart.org/art.htm
>
Good stuff (although I wouldn't want to call Klee or Picasso bad
artists). It has a nice section on Tamara de Lempicka.
Carmine Rhedd
says...
>
> Brian Yoder wrote
OHMIGOD! How long ago was that?
Yoder quit posting here yo these Mani years ago,
to my knowledge. He obviously found better things
to do with his time than be ammunition for Mani's
endless vomition...(re: vomitus)
John Ng
> He obviously found better things
> to do with his time than be ammunition for Mani's
> endless vomition...(re: vomitus)
Ohmigosh, you consider everyone with an idea that is contrary to yours
"vomit" et al. I haven't heard a many sensible statements from you...
just empty childish ranting and name-calling. Yes, Yoder found better
things to do than to contradict you.
John Ng
Carmine Rhedd
pigsm...@hotmail.com says...
>I haven't heard a many sensible statements from you...
>just empty childish ranting and name-calling.
Once again you display a serious lack of
reading comprehension. Describing one's
demeanor is NOT name calling. Describing
your demeanor is what I'm doing when I
say you have a reading comprehension problem.
Name calling would be if I referred to you as an asshole,
jerk, airhead, or any of many names I can
think of that would fit!
Ironywaves
"Rick Taylor" <rickt...@speakeasy.net> wrote in message
news:87znoql...@exile.speakeasy.net...
Abosolutely.
Will
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/temple_ofisis
Mani Deli
Erik A. Mattila
Mani Deli wrote:
> Quote From a NY TIMES from an art review: by ROBERTA SMITH
>
> "Today, museum boards are just another way to enter high society
> rather than a chance to escape from it. They are largely the purview
> of wealthy socialites and captains of industry with little imagination
> or vision, who nonetheless, and usually for not a lot of money, have a
> big say in a museum's affairs."
>
> ---no kidding! Wonder how long this reviewer will last at the job.
Not to worry. She can get a job at the Guggenheim, the new Rockwell museum.
eam
Mani Deli
>and they ignore any rational analysis.
>
>Picassso is considered the Jesus Christ of modern art.
>Picassoholicks do not analyze gospel. They believe what they have been
>told to imagine is there, rather than ever taking a close look. That
>is why they rarely ever refer to the detail of any work. Like
>religious fundamentalists, about the most they can do is, shout hollow
>praises and go off on the details of their religious experience.
Mani Deli
stupidity.
It is an excellent example of over-the -couch sentiment for those who
want visitors to know that they are Modern Art sensitive. These types
rarely hang any excruciating Picasso as that's to much for them.
http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?aid=663809&item=143614
Perhaps Degree holder Fox can explain the placement and technical
aspects of the shoes and how the ball makes the composition.
Once again Picasso amazes us with his ability at drawing hands.
Mametsuki
zeno
Mametsuki wrote:
> Beware of no talent blowhards like this! Have you any clue at all?
his clues are in the realm of illustration not shape invention, he
never asks why Picasso, who could certainly draw, would choose to let
shape invention over-ride illustration for the sake of "ground", and he
probably would also include Rembrandt and Titian in his negativity. He
knows what he likes and likes what he knows and the story ends there.
By the way, you are incorrect, Mani is far from a "no talent", he is
exceptionally good at what he does, it is his waste-of-time haranguing
which is suspect. If Mani's work were in great demand as Picasso or
Rothko, he too might become excessively productive to a fault like the
others who had to deal with momentary or sustained celebrity....
Zeno
Electric Nachos
zeno wrote in message <41D9AF6E...@sonic.net>...
>
>
>Mani is far from a "no talent", he is
>exceptionally good at what he does
Uh... no - he, isn't!
zeno
Electric Nachos wrote:
Want to give me a clue why he isn't. Looks to me to be perfectly
competent work derivative of the Dali approach. What do you think of
Dali?
Zeno
Nerd Gerl
Dali's work is a collection of genuinely hand-made crafted original
paintings. Mani's failed attempts at copying someone else are nothing
more than computer print outs. Without his machine(s), you would see
more of this bearing Mani's signature:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/manideli/reference_pictures/workingd.jpg
As you can see, there is a SEVERE difference between Dali (talent) and
Mani (undefinable).
You have been arguing and defending a moron.
>What do you think of
> Dali?
Dali is a master.
> Zeno
zeno
understand, they look like paintings. Hey, I am not a big fan of the
style, but it looks perfectly competent to me. I am defending what
appears to be his paintings, not his moronic stance on work he does not
understand. Many illustrators do not understand the relationships which
comprise the structure of abstract work, let alone understand that it is
those same structures underlying the whole history of good painting. I
also see Dali as stemming from the same tradition of illustration. I can
see the value in Norman Rockwell also. My perceptions are inclusive. I
can see competance in Mani's work and I can see greatness in Pollock.
Zeno
Clem Mattis
>Mani is far from a "no talent", he is
>exceptionally good at what he does
Would you care to enlighten us further???
Mani's only claim to fame is that he continues
to incite responses from newbies to this newsgroup...