Skill and drawing
Lauri Levanto
> The basic >scientific foundations of drawing and painting technique
are
>pooh-poohed.
>...
>Rote teaching of any kind is dogmatically rejected and
>replaced by slogans and so-called theories.
> <the usual rant of schools is skipped> ...impractical idealisms,
>stressing pep talks about mystical methods for sharpening emotions
>and increasing sensitivities rather than places to learn technique and
>craft.
We have all heard that.
Isn't it time to stop and think about it.
Drawing is to make an image.
The projective geometry and perspective are
tools for that. They are not a skill. Mani often refers to engineering
litterature as source for drawing skills. Construction drawings are
simple projections. The only skill is not to spill ink.
So called explosion pictures of machine parts are tedious to make
but not much of a skill.
They may be nice, however, and quite fun to do sometimes.
Anyone can use these tools to make an image if he/she has the numerical
data available. That is the idea of technical drawing.
Perspective as a theory is another tool. It does not hurt
to read and practise a little. Again it is more a cookbook than a skill.
It is a subset of projective geometry, and depends of metric data.
Even Mani can't construct a perspective drawing of a building
he sees from a distance.
Constructing an image is not art, though Escher could use it to make
art.
Can you see the difference?
* * *
You have to be able to OBSERVE what you see. That is a skill.
Anatomy is another of those fundamentals, I guess. Some knowledge helps.
(I studied one term in medical faculty for that.) It can be used to
derive
those metrics needed for projective construction.
The uses of anatomy information are limited. A rag doll has no anatomy,
but you may want to draw it. The key is to OBSERVE.
In the quote above, Mani refers to *rote teaching* aka rote learning.
That is how you learn to observe. By doing it again and again.
Drawing what you have observed.
Continuous observation and drawing provides you with a memory bank
how things look like. It takes time to learn to *see* perspective.
When you do that you can draw it without *scientific foundation*
Once more, the purpose of drawing is to create an image.
There are two ways:
"That a picture copies the world as such, is petty I think, kind of
humiliating...
They [renaissance painters] depict all they see,
we depict what we look at" (Orhan Pamuk: My Name is Red)
When we look at tte world does not reveal itself as it is.
A few days ago I saw a brown bird at our lawn.
I could not identify the species, so I slowly walked closer.
At a closer distance is was not a bird, but a stud of a tree.
Only there are no studs at our lawn.
I walked still closer, and saw it was a fallen maple leaf.
We pick the facts we experience of the world.
Not arbitrarely but selectively anyway.
To see the perspective distortion is so unnatural
that Mani takes it for a skill.
To draw it is only one of the options.
* * *
I have no experience how art is taught in USA.
If Mani has it right, he might benefit more of the current
teaching than from the trivia he promotes.
-lauri
Erik A. Mattila
Lauri, I don't know if you ever saw Gary Larson's "Far Side" cartoons in
Finland, but they were really funny. Reading your post made me think of
one that was hanging on the wall in the Art Department at UC Davis when
I was enrolled there.
It showed two cavemen, a journeyman and an apprentice, who were working
on a large stone wheel. The apprentice had a small tool box next to
him, and the journeyman was holding a rock, saying: "I told you to bring
me a hammer. This is a Cresent wrench. No...well...maybe it is a hammer?"
I'm not sure I agree with you entirely about technical drawing, though.
I mean that you do develop skills (as any engineer knows, not spilling
ink is somewhat of a skill, all things considered.) But I'm talking
about learning how to use tools - with practice you become better at it,
thus developing "skills."
I've done about every form of technical drawing there is, but here's
where I got stuck: I can't even remember the name of the projection - it
is for laying out sheet material such as plywood for boat building.
Since it will only bend in one direction at a time, you have to lay it
out with a series of radiating lines originating from a calculated
point. I suppose if I stuck with it I could have learned the technique,
but I got frustrated because I couldn't visualize how to calculate the
origin points. I think the "skill" of this was being fluent in abstract
math and geometry, which was never my forte. If I couldn't see it with
my mind's eye, it was very difficult.
Erik
>
>
>
Flobby Bischer
> Drawing is to make an image.
I totally disagree. Drawing is to make a drawing, which can include making
an image, but it could be to explore marks, to make a thought process
available to the visual sensations ro a whole host of other things.
Drawing can be about or come from observation, or it can not. There is no
rule here.
> YOU WROTE:
> Anatomy is another of those fundamentals, I guess.
The reason anatomy, (read this figure drawing) is used in schools is because
it's a great method for teaching observation. The body is subtle, shadowed.
To make a good drawing of a figure you must learn both how to see and what
makes a drawing interesting. Too many people who study anatomy make
anatomical figures but bad drawings.
Semi Anne
>I've done about every form of technical drawing there is, but here's
>where I got stuck: I can't even remember the name of the projection - it
>is for laying out sheet material such as plywood for boat building.
Now imagine working on drawings for an oil
refinery! I wasn't a draftsman but I did have
to do a lot of technical drawing to make my
words into visual presentations in the job that
I held, report writing taking up a lot of my time.
And as a means of keeping
records we had be able to freehand isometric
layouts of the piping - which is like following
one piece of spaghetti in a bowl full of it.
Nowadays it's so much simpler. Take along a
digital camera and flash to capture the details
for a report, and generate any needed drawings
using computer drafting software. But you still
have to have that freehand skill when out in
the field.
Lauri Levanto
that is Developing a Surface. The shape is conical with varying radi.
As far as I know, there is no practival way of calculating the origo.
You give the chine line and guess an origo. That gives you the keel line.
Then make a better guess or alter the chine line.
There is some math - now I remember.
At Roskilde Denmark they reverse engineer viking boats from planks.
Matching the nail holes of two adjacent planks lets them
calculate the curvature if the seam.
-lauri
Lauri Levanto
If you mean _only_ rendering by image, then I agree.
For me image is markings on a paper.
The anatomy section I agree. So much of the scientific base.
The Barclay's Anatomy for the Artist is to the point.
Accurate anatomy, detailed rendering
and virtually useless because the poor sense of volumes.
-lauri
Bob C
> I totally disagree. Drawing is to make a drawing, which can include making
> an image, but it could be to explore marks, to make a thought process
> available to the visual sensations ro a whole host of other things.
Good point. When I draw, my goal is usually to make something beautiful.
Therefore, the primary purpose of every mark I put on the paper is to
make my drawing more beautiful - not to develop an image or make the
image more realistic. My drawings are done in a traditional realistic
style, but realism is not the goal, just a means of obtaining it.
> The reason anatomy, (read this figure drawing) is used in schools is because
> it's a great method for teaching observation. The body is subtle, shadowed.
> To make a good drawing of a figure you must learn both how to see and what
> makes a drawing interesting.
More good points. I remember very little of the details from the anatomy
courses which I took. But what I do remember is how to observe and see
the details in the figure. Anatomy itself is knowledge which is easily
forgotten. Observation is a skill. Like riding a bike, once you learn it
you never forget.
To get back to the main thread topic, it's important to realize that our
visual system doesn't work by having the eyes feed the brain images to
look at. The process of vision is about acquiring knowledge of the world
around us. When we try to draw in the realistic style, we must use that
knowledge to construct on the drawing surface a 2 dimensional image in
an optically correct manner. This ability to do so is a skill, but just
one of many skills that the artist may choose to nurture and develop.
There is nothing particularly magic or all-important about that one
particular skill. Some artists are good at and some artists are good at
other things.
- Bob C.
Erik A. Mattila
Why do I think you may have cursed the engineers? I've done quite a bit
of architectural drawing over the years, as well as hammering nails, so
I was able to throw in an extra in the drawings: that was to dimension a
drawing from a point that you could hook a tape measure on. Seems so
simple, but I got such good feedback from carpenters who were so used to
having to measure a run from the middle of a plate or rafter.
Pipe drawing is great fun. I think it's beautiful. My step-dad was a
Pipefitter who worked on the orginal giant gantrys at Cape Canaveral,
and he told me the complex design tasks were divided among design crews
who all ran their piplines from a huge tower base to a tiny space on
top. Individually it was fine, but when you put all the various team's
work together there was more pipe area than platform area. So the
working stiffs had to sort it all out, essentially redesigning the whole
chingadera. A refinery must be about 20 times as complex.
Erik
>
>
>
>
Erik A. Mattila
Lauri Levanto wrote:
> Hi Erik,
> that is Developing a Surface. The shape is conical with varying radi.
> As far as I know, there is no practival way of calculating the origo.
> You give the chine line and guess an origo. That gives you the keel line.
> Then make a better guess or alter the chine line.
>
> There is some math - now I remember.
> At Roskilde Denmark they reverse engineer viking boats from planks.
> Matching the nail holes of two adjacent planks lets them
> calculate the curvature if the seam.
>
> -lauri
Ah, yes. "Conical projection" - that's the term I couldn't remember.
You mean all this time I thought there was a way to find the origin
point, and that it was a judgement issue? I'll be damned. That never
occured to me. No wonder I couldn't find it in the textbooks.
Erik
Lauri Levanto
"Erik A. Mattila" wrote:
> Lauri Levanto wrote:
> > Hi Erik,
> > that is Developing a Surface. The shape is conical with varying radi.
> > As far as I know, there is no practival way of calculating the origo.
> > You give the chine line and guess an origo. That gives you the keel line.
> > Then make a better guess or alter the chine line.
> >
> > There is some math - now I remember.
> > At Roskilde Denmark they reverse engineer viking boats from planks.
> > Matching the nail holes of two adjacent planks lets them
> > calculate the curvature if the seam.
> >
> > -lauri
>
> Ah, yes. "Conical projection" - that's the term I couldn't remember.
> You mean all this time I thought there was a way to find the origin
> point, and that it was a judgement issue? I'll be damned. That never
> occured to me. No wonder I couldn't find it in the textbooks.
>
> Erik
>
If you have two arbitrary curves ( the chine and the keel line) there is no
guarantee that they
fit on a conical projection. They usually dont.
That is why it is a trial and error procedure.
I kept thinking about the reverse engineering of viking ships.
If you have two curved planks with mathcing nail holes, there is only one shape
how they fit. I would do it with replica planks by trial and error , but I guess
the Roskilde engineers use a finite element method, dividing the planks
to triangles and calculating the curvature where the edges fit.
-lauri
Lauri Levanto
>
> To get back to the main thread topic, it's important to realize that our
> visual system doesn't work by having the eyes feed the brain images to
> look at. The process of vision is about acquiring knowledge of the world
> around us. When we try to draw in the realistic style, we must use that
> knowledge to construct on the drawing surface a 2 dimensional image in
> an optically correct manner. This ability to do so is a skill, but just
> one of many skills that the artist may choose to nurture and develop.
> There is nothing particularly magic or all-important about that one
> particular skill. Some artists are good at and some artists are good at
> other things.
>
> - Bob C.
Our visual system selects the facts so that they make sense.
When we draw realistically, we usually not construct an optically correct image.
We construct an image that gives the best posiibe illusion.
Sometimes it is possible with minimal drawing.
There the artist provides just the necessary cues, and the observer
completes it to make sense.
-lauri
Dilettante
>
> Perspective as a theory is another tool. It does not hurt
> to read and practise a little. Again it is more a cookbook than a skill.
Adept application of a tool, like perspective is indeed a skill. It
can improve a drawing by convincing the viewer of the artist's
original vision.
> You have to be able to OBSERVE what you see. That is a skill.
But observation is not sufficient for the ability to convince the
viewer of the image you want him to see. I have observed faced for
uncountable hours but it is necessarily to master the skill of
modeling with several shades in order to convince the viewer of shapes
and roundness of the face. Otherwise we are left with just a flat
suggestion of a face that the viewer will find no pleasure or interest
in.
I have not learned this skill in modeling yet, and I may need a
teacher to learn it. But the more I consider the matter, the more I
see its value.
>
> Anatomy is another of those fundamentals, I guess. Some knowledge helps.
If you want to draw a human being knowledge of how bones and muscles
affect the outline and shading of a figure are important if you want
to convey the image of a living thing to the viewer.
Dilettante
Dilettante
> YOU WROTE:
>
> > Drawing is to make an image.
> I totally disagree. Drawing is to make a drawing, which can include making
> an image, but it could be to explore marks, to make a thought process
> available to the visual sensations ro a whole host of other things.
> Drawing can be about or come from observation, or it can not. There is no
> rule here.
true, drawing can be subjective.
> The reason anatomy, (read this figure drawing)
Not quite the same. One studies anatomy to improve figure drawing.
is used in schools is because
> it's a great method for teaching observation. The body is subtle, shadowed.
> To make a good drawing of a figure you must learn both how to see and what
> makes a drawing interesting. Too many people who study anatomy make
> anatomical figures but bad drawings.
Observation also developes the ability to make a three dimensional
image work on the two-dimensional surface of the support. But having
to observe to learn the techniques of classical modeling (shading)
would be like re-inventing the wheel. No matter how long I look at a
figure I cannot "see" the method of putting in darks and greys that
the give a figure shape and body.
Dilettante
Semi Anne
>A refinery must be about 20 times as complex.
I was involved doing field inspections on several
new refineries and there was then, and I suppose
still are now, model builders who build scale
models of the plants that are almost as costly
to build as the real thing. But because drawings
are so complex and can't give the 3rd dimension
to the designers and constructors, the models
are invaluable.
Once completed, refineries
typically are under continuing development as
the engineering staff figures out new ways to
squeeze the last 'drops' from the crude. Drawing
a new piping system to fit into the already
existing spaghetti bowl takes a special drafting
talent, and meticulous field work, to get the
dimensions correct. And then you hope the contractor
can make the ends meet when all is committed to
the final bluelines.
Semi Anne
says...
>If you want to draw a human being knowledge of how bones and muscles
>affect the outline and shading of a figure are important if you want
>to convey the image of a living thing to the viewer.
That's why most art schools have at least
one human skeleton "hanging around" somewhere...
Bob C
>
> Our visual system selects the facts so that they make sense.
> When we draw realistically, we usually not construct an optically correct image.
> We construct an image that gives the best posiibe illusion.
You're right, of course, although a somewhat high degree of optical
accuracy is required for something to be considered as having been done
in the realistic style. What I was trying to do was give one explanation
for why craftmanship (hand-eye coordination and skill at manipulating
ones materials) and the ability to create realistic projections are two
very different things.
The typical non-artist tries to draw realistically, creates something
very inaccurate, and knows it's very inaccurate. They mistakenly
attribute this to a lack of craftmanship. They can see what they want to
draw, the know what it is supposed to look like, so if they can't
achieve that it must be because they are unable to make their hands
follow their mind's instructions. We know that they've got this
completely backward. They could easily trace a photograph and create a
crude but accurate drawing. The hand can go where it is told, but when
drawing freehand the mind doesn't know what to tell it.
If one mistakenly believes that drawing accurately is just a matter of
copying the 2D minds image onto paper, then it is natural to believe
that the ability to do this must purely be a matter of craftmanship.
Following this logic, the artist best capable of creating photographic
realism must be the most highly skilled. The fault with this logic lies
in the premise, the mistaken notion that the mind naturally provides us
with a correct 2D image to copy from. You can't put an appreciation of
artistic skill into the proper perspective (pardon the pun) until you
understand why craftmanship and the ability to create accurate
renderings are actually 2 different things.
- Bob C.
Erik A. Mattila
I'm not sure I'm seeing the problem you are talking about. Planks,
unlike plywood, can bend in two directions. You can actually lay out
planks on the lines drawing with a set of dividers, even calculating
taper. What am I not seeing?
And that's another thing - how were the originals built? There was a
pretty solid "theory" passed on from generation to generation of boat
builders, and what culminated in the viking ship was a very beautiful
expression of efficient materials use per design. With the high sheer
line at the bow and the stern, and the wide flair amidship, it doesn't
look like the planks would have to have much taper at all to fit. Just
thinking about it without really studying the techniques, it would seem
like the planks could have been laid over a few forms (ribs) and the
rest of the ribs deemed necessary by the builders put in after the roves
were put in the planks.
I did read a long article once about local fisherman building Bermuda
sloops in Bermuda. Also a very beautiful craft, and incredilby
efficient in terms of design/material use. But that's what you would
expect from poor folks.
Erik
>
Erik A. Mattila
I've always thought that Rembrandt did this especially well in his etchings.
Erik
>
>
Lauri Levanto
> Observation also developes the ability to make a three dimensional
> image work on the two-dimensional surface of the support. But having
> to observe to learn the techniques of classical modeling (shading)
> would be like re-inventing the wheel. No matter how long I look at a
> figure I cannot "see" the method of putting in darks and greys that
> the give a figure shape and body.
>
> Dilettante
Nope,
you do not have to re-invent the wheel,
but each of us has to individually learn how to ride a bicycle.
The "method" you can study from old masters.
How to use it, is a matter of observations.
I have seen prints of Che Guevara,
in pure black and white, no graytones.
The face appears there, the 3D seems to be there.
It IS but a blot of ink
though we use the minimal clues to see the face.
-lauri
Lauri Levanto
Semi Anne wrote:
If you want to draw that the tiny hump on the shoulder
is there *because of collarbone*, then you need anatomy.
If, on the other hand, you want to show that the hump
is characteristic to your subject, then you rely on
observation and judgement.
-lauri
Bob C
>
> If you want to draw that the tiny hump on the shoulder
> is there *because of collarbone*, then you need anatomy.
> If, on the other hand, you want to show that the hump
> is characteristic to your subject, then you rely on
> observation and judgement.
The hump is much easier to see if you know that it is there. Just
because you aren't aware of it doesn't mean it isn't characteristic to
the subject. A good anatomy course will teach you how to see these
things, so even when you forget the anatomy you still have the
observation skills. Actually knowing the anatomy, however, will let you
draw things that can't be seen but nevertheless are still characteristic
of the subject.
- Bob C.
Semi Anne
>> That's why most art schools have at least
>> one human skeleton "hanging around" somewhere...
>
>If you want to draw that the tiny hump on the shoulder
>is there *because of collarbone*, then you need anatomy.
>If, on the other hand, you want to show that the hump
>is characteristic to your subject, then you rely on
>observation and judgement.
>-lauri
While all but the most unfortunate humans
are born with the same number or bones,
you're correct in "observing" that not all
bones have the same dimensions. It's no
different for portraits, where we all have
distinguishing facial features. But - Can you imagine
what it would be like if we all looked exactly alike!?
Mani Deli
>>>>So called explosion pictures of machine parts are tedious to make
>>>>but not much of a skill.
Lauri who probably can't draw apparently thinks that all drawing
theory leads to explosion pictures.
>>>>Anyone can use these tools to make an image if he/she has the numerical
>>>>data available. That is the idea of technical drawing.
Numerical data and has little to do with the basic concepts of
drawing.
>>>>Perspective as a theory is another tool.
Which I doubt she knows much of anything about.
>>>> It does not hurt to read and practise a little. Again it is more a cookbook than a skill.
I'm sure her drawings will show a complete lack of it.
>>>>It is a subset of projective geometry, and depends of metric data.
>>>>Even Mani can't construct a perspective drawing of a building
>>>>he sees from a distance.
One constructs what one sees with the aid of ones knowledge. Lauri who
doesn't know perspective and rattles off the nonsense she got from her
teachers imagines that when one does drawings of a building one
necessarily starts from plan and elevation.
>>>>Constructing an image is not art, though Escher could use it to make
>>>>art.
Art is a value judgment by viewers. The viewer doesn't give a damn
about what you know.
>>>>Can you see the difference? You have to be able to OBSERVE what you see. That is a skill.
The artist applies his knowledge to what he sees and knows what to
look for. He also knows how to construct images from imagination.
>>>>Anatomy is another of those fundamentals, I guess. Some knowledge helps.
But in essence we should all remain as clueless as you.
>>>>In the quote above, Mani refers to *rote teaching* aka rote learning.
>>>>That is how you learn to observe. By doing it again and again.
>>>>Drawing what you have observed.
If that were all to it you needn't bother with teachers. Just stay
home and do a million drawings.
>>>>Continuous observation and drawing provides you with a memory bank
>>>>how things look like. It takes time to learn to *see* perspective.
For starters it takes a knowledge of perspective.
>>>>Once more, the purpose of drawing is to create an image.
Gee, none of us knew that!
>>>>There are two ways:
>>>>"That a picture copies the world as such, is petty I think, kind of
>>>>humiliating...
-for those incapable of doing it with any degree of skill
>>>>They [renaissance painters] depict all they see,
>>>>we depict what we look at" (Orhan Pamuk: My Name is Red)
And what's the difference besides art school double talk?
>>>>I have no experience how art is taught in USA.
>>>>If Mani has it right, he might benefit more of the current
>>>>teaching than from the trivia he promotes.
>>>>
>>>>-lauri
Trivia according to lauri,
Knowledge of pictorial construction, perspective, and I suspect a
foundation in the craft.
You will notice that like most others here who denigrate skill she
never shows her work. I suspect she has good reason for this.
Lauri wrote:
>>>>So called explosion pictures of machine parts are tedious to make
>>>>but not much of a skill.
Lauri who probably can't draw thinks that all drawing theory leads to
explosion pictures.
>>>>Anyone can use these tools to make an image if he/she has the numerical
>>>>data available. That is the idea of technical drawing.
Numerical data and has little to do with the basic concepts of
drawing.
>>>>Perspective as a theory is another tool.
Which I doubt she knows much of anything about.
>>>> It does not hurt to read and practise a little. Again it is more a cookbook than a skill.
I'm sure her drawings will show a complete lack of it
>>>>It is a subset of projective geometry, and depends of metric data.
>>>>Even Mani can't construct a perspective drawing of a building
>>>>he sees from a distance.
One constructs what one sees with the aid of ones knowledge. Lauri who
doesn't know perspective and rattles off the nonsense she got from her
teachers imagines that when one does drawings of a building one
necessarily starts from plan and elevation.
>>>>Constructing an image is not art, though Escher could use it to make
>>>>art.
Art is a value judgment. The viewer doesn't give a damn about what you
know.
>>>>Can you see the difference? You have to be able to OBSERVE what you see. That is a skill.
The artist applies his knowledge to what he sees and knows what to
look for. He also knows how to construct images from imagination.
>>>>Anatomy is another of those fundamentals, I guess. Some knowledge helps.
But in essence we should all remain as clueless as you.
>>>>In the quote above, Mani refers to *rote teaching* aka rote learning.
>>>>That is how you learn to observe. By doing it again and again.
>>>>Drawing what you have observed.
If that were all to it you needn't bother with teachers. Just stay
home and do a million drawings.
>>>>Continuous observation and drawing provides you with a memory bank
>>>>how things look like. It takes time to learn to *see* perspective.
For starters it takes a knowledge of perspective.
>>>>Once more, the purpose of drawing is to create an image.
Gee, none of us knew that!
>>>>There are two ways:
>>>>"That a picture copies the world as such, is petty I think, kind of
>>>>humiliating...
-for those incapable of doing it with any degree of skill
>>>>They [renaissance painters] depict all they see,
>>>>we depict what we look at" (Orhan Pamuk: My Name is Red)
And what's the difference besides art school double talk?
>>>>I have no experience how art is taught in USA.
>>>>If Mani has it right, he might benefit more of the current
>>>>teaching than from the trivia he promotes.
>>>>
>>>>-lauri
Trivia according to lauri:
Knowledge of pictorial construction, perspective, and I suspect a
foundation in the craft.
You will notice that like most others here who denigrate knowledge and
skill she never shows her work. I suspect she has good reason for
this.
Tired of Modern Art? See-
http://www3.sympatico.ca/manideli/
Mani Deli
-The rules for drawing form.
-mechanical and architectural drawing.
-Perspective, light and shade and how to draw complex form..
How to draw from imagination.
How to draw the chair the model is sitting on.
Flying_Naked_People
> Lauri Levanto wrote:
>
> >
> > If you want to draw that the tiny hump on the shoulder
> > is there *because of collarbone*, then you need anatomy.
> > If, on the other hand, you want to show that the hump
> > is characteristic to your subject, then you rely on
> > observation and judgement.
>
>
> because you aren't aware of it doesn't mean it isn't characteristic to
> the subject. A good anatomy course will teach you how to see these
> things, so even when you forget the anatomy you still have the
> observation skills. Actually knowing the anatomy, however, will let you
> draw things that can't be seen but nevertheless are still characteristic
> of the subject.
Question: Why would you draw something that isn't there (assuming your goal is
to draw what you observe?)
> - Bob C.
>
>
>
>
Flying_Naked_People
>
> If you want to draw that the tiny hump on the shoulder
> is there *because of collarbone*, then you need anatomy.
Wouldn't you draw it... because... you Saw It?
> If, on the other hand, you want to show that the hump
> is characteristic to your subject, then you rely on
> observation and judgement.
Character, is rendered through exaggeration - minor or major. Observation and
judgement are just regular ol' drawing skills.
Erik A. Mattila
Probably an economic boom for the botox, silicon and surgical tool
industry, for starters.
Erik
>
>
Leo Papandreou
news:<2ggbnv0nk8ic2f9da...@4ax.com>...
> Lauri wrote:
>
>> Perspective as a theory is another tool.
>
> Which I doubt she knows much of anything about.
>
>> It does not hurt to read and practise a little. Again it is more a cookbook
>> than a skill.
>
> I'm sure her drawings will show a complete lack of it.
>
>
>> It is a subset of projective geometry, and depends of metric data.
>> Even Mani can't construct a perspective drawing of a building
>> he sees from a distance.
>
> One constructs what one sees with the aid of ones knowledge. Lauri who
> doesn't know perspective and rattles off the nonsense she got from her
> teachers imagines that when one does drawings of a building one
> necessarily starts from plan and elevation.
Ah yes, Mani's "knowledge."
If by "knowledge" you mean the basics of axonometric projection, should
we learn isometric, diametric, trimetric, or all three forms? Should we
automatically assume the viewer has an orthogonal view of the scene? Can
we rule out projection onto non-planar surfaces because such surfaces
"distort" the image? While learning the basics, should we restrict our
lessons to developable surfaces such as the cylinder, cone and plane, or
is there some small chance we'll want to simulate projection onto surfaces
that cannot be unrolled flat without stretching, tearing or shrinking? Is
the orientation of the projection surface normal, transverse, or oblique?
Is it tangent or secant to the sphere or ellipsoid? Can the projection
depend on mathematical formulae that have no direct "physical" interpretation?
Is it permitted to project color, density, thickness, motion, etc., or is
impressionism, futurism, expressionism and especially cubism insufficiently
"knowledgeable?" Are we allowed to challenge assumptions about perception and
cognition? Is it kosher to model our landscapes according to one or more
cartographic projections, or will the resulting design look too "abstract?"
Do you consider an education in feminist perspective not suited to the
invention of art? How about queer perspective? I have a follow-up question:
how would someone go about expressing creatively queer or feminist perspective
on a canvas using pigment, and would you recognize their justly unheralded
efforts if you saw them? If not, why not? Don't you think the way we visualize
the world is intimately connected to how we think about it, or did you think
eyes weren't connected to a fancy thing big city doctors like to call a brain?
I don't know, I'm just thinking aloud here. It is the mark of an educated mind
to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it, as Aristotle said.
Perhaps it is sufficient to measure the size and placement of bare breasts,
calculate their "accuracy" on a fast computer, and declare their artist did or
didn't attend an atelier approved by ARC. If he or she did not, then he or she
(trans-gendered individuals too) is not a proper artist. Thus it were better
their work not been created. Right?
In summary, what are you talking about? Please think critically. Blow out the
ghosts inside your head, burn away the fog of words dogmatic, relieve us from
your tyranny of platitudes, and tell us what it is exactly that your are trying
to say. Hint: you are not talking about Art, Creativity, or the Knowledge; you
are talking about a certain kind of art, a specific convention and the bag
of tricks required in its creation. In the 100,000 years man has walked the
earth and scribbled on its clays and pulps and woods and fabrics, this
particular convention occupies a second of his invention.
Do try to understand reality is utterly different from its projections, be
they mathematical, physical, conceptual, emotional or intentional. We cannot
create art without "projecting" shadows on a page. It's all a simulation. And
once we suspend our disbelief pondering an image, we dispense with reality.
So I ask you once again: what is this "knowledge" you are referring to and how
do you propose a random selection of people across time and place, let us call
them "artists", cultivate it, and did you have in mind a procedure by which
the rabble can in their work identify it? If this "knowledge" is a measure of
the basic set of skills you are forever "reasoning" about, then you are
reasoning in circles. There is an infinite world of "knowledge" and skills out
there in all humanity. Every bit of it can and has created "art."
<snip a lot of bark bark bark!>
Nice doggie. Sit!
You are a shrill Chihuahua barking at intruders from small gaps inside the
fense.
P.S. Yes, Mani, I can draw better than you. In my misspent youth I drew
sidewalk portraits for pretty girls and drinking money. So don't go there.
Besides which, we are not painting pictures on this list or wrestling; we
are writing sentences. If you cannot write compelling or at least amusing
sentences, sit on your hands.
P.P.S. If there are still people here who aren't aware the images you posted
recently for our admiration were something more than a computer manipulated
potage au scans and collage, I'm telling them for you now. But hey I guess
you are very at skilfull pressing buttons using the undo command -- you have
the finger dexterity of a great artist, and maybe even a great looking ass.
--
Leo Papandreou
A Secret self I had enclosed within,
That was not bounded with my Clothes or Skin
...
It did encompass and possess rare Things.
Bob C
> Bob C <bob...@erols.com> wrote in message news:3F758CCF...@erols.com...
>
>>... Actually knowing the anatomy, however, will let you
>>draw things that can't be seen but nevertheless are still characteristic
>>of the subject.
>>
> Question: Why would you draw something that isn't there (assuming your goal is
> to draw what you observe?)
>
1. Observation consist not just of gathering visual information, but
also of processing that information - so it consists of both internal
and external inputs. If your goal is to draw purely the visual stimulus,
then that's a different matter.
2. My primary goal is usually to create something beautiful, not to draw
what I observe. Drawing realistically what I observe is just a means of
creating something beautiful.
- Bob C.
Mani Deli
wrote:
>P.S. Yes, Mani, I can draw better than you.
I'm sure, so why not shut up for a while and let us all see what you
can do.
>P.P.S. If there are still people here who aren't aware the images you posted
>recently for our admiration were something more than a computer manipulated
>potage au scans and collage, I'm telling them for you now.
Long ago when I painted professionally I had to do all preliminary
drawings, placement, and enlarging by traditional methods. The
computer frees on from this tedium. (which BTW is often done by
assistants if the painter is wealthy enough to have them.)
One can now do all those pieces and get the composition in the
computer. On can take sketches and put them into the computer and do
what the computer does best. Print them out and do additional painting
return it etc.
The computer generated part is then used as an underpainting. There is
nothing unusual about this technique and it is used constantly. Even
art schools now teach computer methods with the usual disastrous
results because it is taught unsystematically to students who can't
draw .
Art schools and artzy fartzies infer that any method other then
mindless schmiering around and drawing without technical knowledge is
the only way to go about things painterly. Everything else is cheating
and using gimmicks. You can usually look at the work of teachers,
students failures, and the crap in museums to see why this is so.
Those who can't draw and don't know perspective and their painterly
craft will produce little more than the crap which floods the internet
regardless of method. Most can't even do an interesting abstraction on
a computer or anything else.
I advise all artzy fartzies here to continue hoodwink themselves with
work based on a total lack of craftsmanly knowledge along with a lack
of understanding of the latest methods.
The more so-called artists who don't know their craft, the more work
for those who do.
> But hey I guess
>you are very at skilfull pressing buttons using the undo command -- you have
>the finger dexterity of a great artist, and maybe even a great looking ass.
Glad to hear my work irritates you. I hope it continues to do so.
Dilettante
>
> Wouldn't you draw it... because... you Saw It?
No, conventional wisdom in the art community is that, if you draw the
bone or muscle structure you know is there, even though it may not be
visible, you will have a better drawing. This would be true if
rendering realistic living creatures is your goal.
Dilettante
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Dilettante" <hu...@myself.com> wrote in message
news:ba63903f.03092...@posting.google.com...
seeing. If you know your anatomy then you can see how a person holds a
posture better than if you don't. It's a bit like drawing people with
clothes on, you will see how the clothes hang better if you know how the
body underneath the clothes works.
--
Dulce et decorum est prope mare sedere boglatin for it is a sweet and seemly
thing to sit down by the sea - J Joyce Let. 20 May (1957) 254
Flying_Naked_People
It's "conventionally wise" to draw ribs on a 300 pound man... stomach muscles
on a pregnant woman... fat glands on a decrepit 80 year old... knees on a
newborn... wrinkles on a 1 year old... and facial hair on women.
Got it.
Dilettante <hu...@myself.com> wrote in message
news:ba63903f.03092...@posting.google.com...
> "Flying_Naked_People" <http://www.rcip.com/nerdgerl/email.htm> wrote in
message news:<vnbjuui...@corp.supernews.com>...
>
> >
> > Wouldn't you draw it... because... you Saw It?
>
> No, conventional wisdom in the art community is that, if you draw the
> bone or muscle structure you know is there, even though it may not be
> visible, you will have a better drawing. This would be true if
> rendering realistic living creatures is your goal.
>
> Dilettante
Peter H.M. Brooks
>
> Dilettante <hu...@myself.com> wrote in message
> news:ba63903f.03092...@posting.google.com...
> > "Flying_Naked_People" <http://www.rcip.com/nerdgerl/email.htm> wrote in
> message news:<vnbjuui...@corp.supernews.com>...
> >
> > >
> > > Wouldn't you draw it... because... you Saw It?
> >
> > No, conventional wisdom in the art community is that, if you draw the
> > bone or muscle structure you know is there, even though it may not be
> > visible, you will have a better drawing. This would be true if
> > rendering realistic living creatures is your goal.
> >
> So.....
>
> It's "conventionally wise" to draw ribs on a 300 pound man... stomach
muscles
> on a pregnant woman... fat glands on a decrepit 80 year old... knees on a
> newborn... wrinkles on a 1 year old... and facial hair on women.
>
> Got it.
>
are not there!
What is a 'fat gland'?
--
Hark, wretches! how I mean to martyr you. This one hand yet is left to cut
your throats, Whilst that Lavinia 'tween her stumps doth hold the baisin
that receives your guilty blood. -Titus Andronicus (Hastivibrax)
Lauri Levanto
Flying_Naked_People wrote:
> ... Character, is rendered through exaggeration - minor or major. Observation
> and
> judgement are just regular ol' drawing skills.
Exactly!
See the Mani rant in this thread. No mention of observation or judgement.
-lauri
Flying_Naked_People
news:bl63bm$emo$1...@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net...
> What is a 'fat gland'?
It's a usenet post reduced to trivial comments because the originator of said
post is afraid of controversy. By that definition, I'd say this newsgroup is
pretty well-rounded.
Lauri Levanto
Mani Deli wrote:
>
> I'm sure her drawings will show a complete lack of it.
That's our Mani, sure of thegs she claims she has never seen
* * *
> Trivia according to lauri,
>
> Knowledge of pictorial construction, perspective, and I suspect a
> foundation in the craft.
Exactly,
The summit of your knowledge,
trivia that we learn at high schools here in Europe.
lauri
Semi Anne
>But - Can you imagine
>> what it would be like if we all looked exactly alike!?
>
>Probably an economic boom for the botox, silicon and surgical tool
>industry, for starters.
>
>Erik
Oh, come on now. You're being overly
sensitive. I did NOT speculate what
it would be like if everyone looked like you!
Or me, for that matter!!
But it does make one think about who they
would like to look like, doesn't it?
What if all women looked like Bo Derek (my choice)
or perhaps Clark Gable (my alter-ego's choice).
Chris
"Semi Anne" <a...@dontemailme.com> wrote in message
news:3f74...@news.zianet.com...
Here's one of my favourite skeleton based paintings.....
http://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/p_0212.htm
(It's on one of the best sites on the Web - good job DRB)
Chris
Fred Mason
Lauri. You even sparked a discussion
As usual Mani came in with a flame. Full of knowledge based upon his
thoughts about Miss Lauri -- perhaps some one should let Mani know that
Lauri is a man.
Fred
"Lauri Levanto" <laur...@netti.fi> wrote in message
news:3F76B06F...@netti.fi...
Erik A. Mattila
Kewl. I've always like James Ensor's skeletons - but he admired Van
Gogh above most, I think. I wonder if this painting inspired Ensor's
skeletons?
Erik
>
>
Mani Deli
>I thought Lauri's original post was thought ful and thorough. Well spoken,
>Lauri. You even sparked a discussion
>
>As usual Mani came in with a flame. Full of knowledge based upon his
>thoughts about Miss Lauri -- perhaps some one should let Mani know that
>Lauri is a man.
I know that to a pedant like you who doesn't address points, this is
of mega importance.
and Lauri wrote, " That's our Mani, sure of thegs she claims she has
never seen."
I'm also a man and I hope this fact has you squirming with delight.
I suspect you may actually be a woman.
Mani Deli
wrote:
>
>
>Mani Deli wrote:
>
>>
>> I'm sure her drawings will show a complete lack of it.
>
>That's our Mani, sure of thegs she claims she has never seen
>* * *
Well lets see them. Bet we don't.
>> Trivia according to lauri,
>>
>> Knowledge of pictorial construction, perspective, and I suspect a
>> foundation in the craft.
>
>Exactly,
>The summit of your knowledge,
>trivia that we learn at high schools here in Europe.
>
I've seen many European results which show the complete lack of
knowledge of fundamentals and the craft.
Part of not teaching the fundamentals is to convince students that
they know them. Art schools here are full of students who claim to
know how to draw. Results show otherwise and complaints about this
situation are mounting.
Complaining about perspective is about as stupid as complaining about
the scales in music.
Mani Deli
wrote:
>Exactly!
>See the Mani rant in this thread. No mention of observation or judgement.
>
>-lauri
Try drawing without observation and judgement. I also made no mention
of drawing with eyes closed because it is obvious that keeping them
open helps. I also suggest that Lauri stay awake while making
observations.
I remember teachers I had who would talk endlessly about stuff like
observation and judgment as abstract terms. Absolutely useless! The
fundamentals give you the ability to use observation and judgment.
Complaining about perspective is as stupid as complaining about the
Leo Papandreou
prefer instead to take offense inside the postscript. The reason it was
marked "P.S." is it was incidental. You are very sensitive. I cannot emphasize
strongly enough how little I care about your working methods and banal scans:
renaissance portraits, the Graf Zeppelin. No one suggested computer art is in
any way diminished because you practice or defend it.
Not that I didn't expect you miss or dodge the point completely. I am merely
surprised you didn't punctuate my sentences with a steadfast stream of "CRAZY
ARTZY-FARTZY TALK!" rebuttals. You do that to everyone else. I haven't decided
whether to feel jilted or grateful.
There is this pygmy chimpanzee named Kanzi kept at Georgia State. It was
raised by clever teachers and understands some spoken English. It has amazed
scientists with its ability to make up and combine "words" that seem to have
the same meaning across different situations. The reason I bring all this up
is to note in passing that this ape makes more intelligent conversation than
you do.
The problem with your "no skill no art" mantra, Mani, is it leaves the
question open, skill at what? If you mean skill at making art, for instance
the skill possessed by Hokusai, Alphonse Mucha and Paul Klee, then I must
tell you that tautologies are not very interesting and even less informative.
Kanzi says that we should learn to make sounds in English in order to converse
in English. Ha-ha! Look at the clever monkey! Let us stick it in a cage marked
USENET and watch it entertain us willy-nilly.
Good luck in your future endeavors.
--
Leo Papandreou
You can't convince a deaf man by talking
Mani Deli <ma...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message news:<u7rcnvk8i6nv6nsrg...@4ax.com>...
<Who cares.>
Lauri Levanto
>
> and Lauri wrote, " That's our Mani, sure of thegs she claims she has
> never seen."
>
Well I knew that. In my language ( Finnish) we make no sex discrimination
of a third person. Therefore I feel not insulted.
I liberately used the female form, as it restricted my urge to reply your
rudeness, sir.
-lauri
Lauri Levanto
the pupils got 2 marks; one for reading, the other for comprehension
what the have read.
Mani Deli wrote:
> Complaining about perspective is about as stupid as complaining about
> the scales in music.
>
Here you, sir, show failure in the comprehension test.
I did not complain about perspective. I said it is a tool, like anatomy.
Perspective *construction* is trivia.
Drawing in perspective is a skill of observation.
About the useful tools.
Look at the women of Ingres, or Horatio's Oath.
These works are not optically correct, nor are they mistakes like John NG
believed.
They render something else than mere looks.
-lauri
Miriam
> Mani Deli wrote again:
>
> > The basic >scientific foundations of drawing and painting technique
> are
> >pooh-poohed.
> >...
I just went into this web-side of yours, Mani Deli. Your work seems to
be OK, but the way you build your crusade against "modern art" is not.
Among other things, you have av reproduction of some female nudes made
by Picasso. To change the proportions of the body demands a lot of
skills if your doing it intentionally - and without a nice little
datagrid available - which I think we could assume is the case when it
comes to Picasso.
Picasso was drawing from very young age and given a solid education in
art by his father in Spain. Picasso's early drawings are not bad at
all. I'm not discussing Picasso's work as such, but an "unskilled"
painter would never be able to organize a picture like Guernica. You
are of course free to think what you like about Picasso's work, but
you have absolutely no grounds for claiming that it is due to lack of
drawing skills.
Miriam
Mani Deli
wrote:
>The problem with your "no skill no art" mantra, Mani, is it leaves the
>question open, skill at what?
Post some of your work and perhaps we will see.
Those four words irritate so many here with good reason. The statement
is not entirely literary, but it strikes the right chord because the
art I criticize obviously exhibits so little skill, It serves as a
wake up irritation for all artzy fartzies because, to say it
aphoristically, "it hits the nail on the balls."
Mani Deli
wrote:
>Mani Deli wrote:
>
>> Complaining about perspective is about as stupid as complaining about
>> the scales in music.
>>
>
>Here you, sir, show failure in the comprehension test.
>I did not complain about perspective. I said it is a tool, like anatomy.
>Perspective *construction* is trivia.
Then what are all the books filled with which address this subject?
Just trivia?
>
>Drawing in perspective is a skill of observation.
People had observational skills when they did cave drawings.
It took the best Renaissance mathematicians, artists and architects
half a century to figure out this trivia and it was taught as a
subject ever since until the advent of Modern Academic Art. Artists
including Durer traveled all the way to Italy to learn the secrets of
this "trivia."
And the reason most can't draw today is because the don't know
anything much about this trivia. About all they are taught is just
observe, nothing much more.
>
>About the useful tools.
>Look at the women of Ingres, or Horatio's Oath.
>These works are not optically correct, nor are they mistakes like John NG
>believed.
>They render something else than mere looks.
The rules for producing a three dimensional look on a two dimensional
surface don't necessarily lead to images with "optically correct mere
looks." They allow infinite variation but it is immediately apparent
to the viewer when that knowledge is absent.
Mani Deli
> What I was trying to do was give one explanation
>for why craftmanship (hand-eye coordination and skill at manipulating
>ones materials) and the ability to create realistic projections are two
>very different things.
The artists combines the two.
>
> The typical non-artist tries to draw realistically, creates something
>very inaccurate, and knows it's very inaccurate. They mistakenly
>attribute this to a lack of craftmanship. They can see what they want to
>draw, the know what it is supposed to look like, so if they can't
>achieve that it must be because they are unable to make their hands
>follow their mind's instructions. We know that they've got this
>completely backward.
Perhaps we do but they don't.
> They could easily trace a photograph and create a
>crude but accurate drawing.
Those who don't know why the lines they are tracing run the way they
do usually get it wrong. An artist who knows what's happening here can
not only get it right but is able to vary the tracing to aesthetic
advantage. This is why so few can even copy a photograph.
>The hand can go where it is told, but when
>drawing freehand the mind doesn't know what to tell it.
In many cases when drawing objects that have symmetrical features
drawing several sets slightly off by a few degrees will result in a
look of glaring error.
>If one mistakenly believes that drawing accurately is just a matter of
>copying the 2D minds image onto paper,
This is what the no-knowledge right brain and pure outline advocates
believe.
> then it is natural to believe
>that the ability to do this must purely be a matter of craftmanship.
>Following this logic, the artist best capable of creating photographic
>realism must be the most highly skilled.
>The fault with this logic lies
>in the premise, the mistaken notion that the mind naturally provides us
>with a correct 2D image to copy from. You can't put an appreciation of
>artistic skill into the proper perspective (pardon the pun) until you
>understand why craftmanship and the ability to create accurate
>renderings are actually 2 different things.
>
The artist must be knowledgeable for starters. Using this knowledge
allows artwork which varies from pure reality and shows an image which
is aesthetically pleasing. Knowledge of craft in combination with
theory are the factors necessary (very roughly speaking).
Rote as I call it is the mere beginning of the knowledge necessary for
fine work. I wouldn't even mention this fact if most modern art and
the result of teaching it revealed even a semblance knowledge.
No one need discuss the lack of knowledge of the scales and the
complexity it infers in music and no advance can be made without this
basic knowledge. The opposite is the case in the fine arts at
present..
Erik A. Mattila
Could be, Mani, but it's sort of a self-fullfilling prophecy for you to
point that out. On the other hand, I'll bet a lot of people react to
your four words because they are so hopelessly corney.
Erik the Blowbag.
Erik A. Mattila
> On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 10:21:20 +0300, Lauri Levanto <laur...@netti.fi>
> wrote:
>
>>Mani Deli wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Complaining about perspective is about as stupid as complaining about
>>>the scales in music.
>>>
>>
>>Here you, sir, show failure in the comprehension test.
>>I did not complain about perspective. I said it is a tool, like anatomy.
>>Perspective *construction* is trivia.
>
>
> Then what are all the books filled with which address this subject?
> Just trivia?
>
>>Drawing in perspective is a skill of observation.
>
>
> People had observational skills when they did cave drawings.
>
> It took the best Renaissance mathematicians, artists and architects
> half a century to figure out this trivia and it was taught as a
> subject ever since until the advent of Modern Academic Art. Artists
> including Durer traveled all the way to Italy to learn the secrets of
> this "trivia."
>
> And the reason most can't draw today is because the don't know
> anything much about this trivia. About all they are taught is just
> observe, nothing much more.
So now we have Maya, Strata Studio, Lightwave and a score of other
software to perspective the hell out of any idea. Everyone can now be
an artist. Whoopti-doo.
Erik the Blowbag.
Leo Papandreou
> On 28 Sep 2003 20:21:42 -0700, koan...@earthling.net (Leo Papandreou)
> wrote:
>
> >The problem with your "no skill no art" mantra, Mani, is it leaves the
> >question open, skill at what?
>
> Post some of your work and perhaps we will see.
>
The problem with that statement, Mani, is that you post yours and we don't
see. Someone posts Klee's work and you won't see. Posting work establishes
no one's case, and I remind you we are writing sentences here not painting
pictures or measuring our dicks. If you can't argue your position, it means
that is what you can't or will not do, and nothing more.
> Those four words irritate so many here with good reason. The statement
> is not entirely literary, but it strikes the right chord because the
> art I criticize obviously exhibits so little skill, It serves as a
> wake up irritation for all artzy fartzies because, to say it
> aphoristically, "it hits the nail on the balls."
I disagree the art you criticize lacks "skill." Why do you keep using that word
in a circle? It seems that you cannot write two sentences without swinging a
dead cat at a caricature of "skill" or its supposed lack thereof. Skill, yes,
everyone agrees -- but skill at what? Do you mean skill at art? If we knew
how *that* worked, Mani, there'd be no reason to create any. Art would simply,
by its nature, cease to be.
Try to understand art shouldn't be meretricious pictures, or X, or Y, or 3 *
cosine theta over Z. Art SHOULDN'T be anything. What a dreary world we'd live
in if it were. Why, it wouldn't be human. And that's the point: in human
imagination, not in perception, lies the mediated experience we call "art"
(because for some obscure reason it seems we have to call it something.)
You want to limit human imagination. You want art should connect us with the
conventions of linear perspective instead of other minds. OK so good luck with
that, my friend, but I do not think you (me, he, or she) quite understand what
means the verb "to be", the simulation of which is art, or the difficulties you
won't overcome trying to remake being after dusty sentences inside your head.
Always you are talking like a 17th century artzy-fartzy.
It's not four words inside your sig that nettles, Mani, it's the manner in
which you defend the devout prejudices they've come to stand for.
"ARTZY-FARTZY!" is not an argument; it is merely a determined lack of
understanding on your part. And it's become old. I think you should accuse
people of evil instead of being art fags. R.A.F. will be more entertaining,
for one thing.
> Tired of Modern Art? See-
> http://www3.sympatico.ca/manideli/
I'm sorry if I interrupted your monologue.
--
Leo Papandreou
"Life is eating, rutting, picking fleas, and a little motorcycle maintenance."
(Kanzi)
Mani Deli
who doesn't dare show his artwork
Mani Deli
<emat...@oco.net> wrote:
>So now we have Maya, Strata Studio, Lightwave and a score of other
>software to perspective the hell out of any idea. Everyone can now be
>an artist. Whoopti-doo.
>
>Erik the Blowbag.
>
So lets see what you can do with it?
Eric the Blowbag thinks that I'm saying that all you need is
perspective and then you have art.
Mani Deli
>I just went into this web-side of yours, Mani Deli. Your work seems to
>be OK, but the way you build your crusade against "modern art" is not.
>Among other things, you have av reproduction of some female nudes made
>by Picasso. To change the proportions of the body demands a lot of
>skills if your doing it intentionally - and without a nice little
>datagrid available - which I think we could assume is the case when it
>comes to Picasso.
I'm not interested in how he did it. I consider the results horrible.
What's on the wall is what counts.
>Picasso was drawing from very young age and given a solid education in
>art by his father in Spain.
I think he was average even as a student.
>Picasso's early drawings are not bad at
>all.
They aren't bad. They just aren't on the level that modern critics
rave about..
>I'm not discussing Picasso's work as such, but an "unskilled"
>painter would never be able to organize a picture like Guernica.
So what. My point is that this third rate cartoon isn't great art.
> You
>are of course free to think what you like about Picasso's work, but
>you have absolutely no grounds for claiming that it is due to lack of
>drawing skills.
>
I've pointed that out in former messages referring to particular works
as I do on my web site. Picasso's drawing skills are on the level of a
third rate cartoonist.
PS In case you didn't know, Picasso used photos, projection and all
available means in his artwork. Nothing wrong with that.
Mani Deli
wrote:
>>
>>
>> and Lauri wrote, " That's our Mani, sure of thegs she claims she has
>> never seen."
>>
>> I'm also a man .
>
>Well I knew that. In my language ( Finnish) we make no sex discrimination
>of a third person. Therefore I feel not insulted.
>I liberately used the female form, as it restricted my urge to reply your
>rudeness, sir.
>
What rudeness? I quoted you because you thought I was a woman. Nothing
wrong with that.
The statement was directed to the pedantic twit who wrote :
>>As usual Mani came in with a flame. Full of knowledge based upon his
>>thoughts about Miss Lauri -- perhaps some one should let Mani know that
>>Lauri is a man.
Semi Anne
>Erik the Blowbag.
You'll NEVER EVER out-blowbag Mani!!!
Miriam
> (Miriam) wrote:
>
> >I'm not discussing Picasso's work as such, but an "unskilled"
> >painter would never be able to organize a picture like Guernica.
>
> So what. My point is that this third rate cartoon isn't great art.
>
Prefering renaissance painters to "modernist" is no crime, but when
you say that modernist is unskilled you could easily be accused out
ruling them out as legitimate partipants on the art scene.
Personally I believe that Donald Duck might have amused Leonardo. My
attitude to Picasso is ambigious.
It is singlemindednes that destroy art - and now I'm talking about
physical destruction. Art history is filled with it and unfortunately
it hasn't stopped. The latest contributions are Taliban destroying
2-3000 years old Buddha statues in Afghanistan and the
Bush-administrations that had a war to fight, and therefore saw no
reasons to protect the Bagdad museum, or other treasures.
Ask Taliban or the Bush-administration why they did so - and both will
refer to some unsubstantiated conviction. Throughout a day in Bagdad
treasures that had survived wars and riots and who knows what, over
thousands of years were destroyed. Rumsfeldt didn't think that some
old stone-plates could be more important to humanity than the war he
was so keen upon. People ruling out competing realities, and putting
force behind their perceptions, is very dangerous to art.
Then - it is not singlemindedness saying that third rate cartoon isn't
great art, it is an opinion. I'm just very tense when it comes to
crusades.
Nicholas Simmons
Edward G. Nilges
>
> >I just went into this web-side of yours, Mani Deli. Your work seems to
> >be OK, but the way you build your crusade against "modern art" is not.
> >Among other things, you have av reproduction of some female nudes made
> >by Picasso. To change the proportions of the body demands a lot of
> >skills if your doing it intentionally - and without a nice little
> >datagrid available - which I think we could assume is the case when it
> >comes to Picasso.
>
> I'm not interested in how he did it. I consider the results horrible.
> What's on the wall is what counts.
>
> >Picasso was drawing from very young age and given a solid education in
> >art by his father in Spain.
>
> I think he was average even as a student.
You may think this all you want, but it shows a complete ignorance of
the facts, big fella.
Picasso aced his entrance examinations to the conservative academy at
Barcelona in the 1890s, during a time when provincial academies hadn't
heard of modernism.
When his father perceived his traditional skill, his father, a
traditional artist, gave Picasso his tools and stopped painting.
During the early years of the century and during his "blue" and "rose"
periods, Picasso painted acrobats, *saltimbanques* and traveling
players in a realistic style. The most famous example is the guitar
player, from the "blue" period, in the Art Institute of Chicago, and
this is only slightly distorted for emotional effect.
>
> >Picasso's early drawings are not bad at
> >all.
>
> They aren't bad. They just aren't on the level that modern critics
> rave about..
Actually, one of the most important critics of Picasso, John Berger,
doesn't "rave", and doesn't give Picasso uncritical admiration. As a
Marxist, Berger believes that the category "great artist" is overblown
and (following some of Marx's own writings on this matter) is CREATED
by the deprivation of any real chance for the great mass of people to
have any way whatsoever of expressing themselves as artists or as
human beings.
He sees Picasso as a tragic case, trapped by his own success into a
loneliness beyond belief because unlike the ordinary man, Picasso
"lived the dream." This merely made Picasso, while a "great artist"
producing genuinely high quality work, completely unable to share
ordinary feelings, and as a result, Picasso damaged people close to
him.
However, at least Picasso did not spread bile and lies on the
Internet.
>
> >I'm not discussing Picasso's work as such, but an "unskilled"
> >painter would never be able to organize a picture like Guernica.
>
> So what. My point is that this third rate cartoon isn't great art.
>
> > You
> >are of course free to think what you like about Picasso's work, but
> >you have absolutely no grounds for claiming that it is due to lack of
> >drawing skills.
> >
> I've pointed that out in former messages referring to particular works
> as I do on my web site. Picasso's drawing skills are on the level of a
> third rate cartoonist.
>
This guy is like that Onion columnist who works in an office and is
proud of his office "skilz" and be dissing the Accounts payabo hos.
For the last time: who cares? Get a life.
Dilettante
The story about the destruction of art works in the Bagdad museum was
debunked by journalists later investigating it. This was done several
months ago.
Picasso came at a time when classical draftsmanship and painting were
rejected. Picasso when through many phases--Blue, Rose, Neo-classical,
constructions, Cubist, etc. There are many powerful images there. He
used simplified classicism during the Rose period, for example the
pierrot images.
Dilettante
Miriam
> pos...@chello.no (Miriam) wrote in message
>
> The story about the destruction of art works in the Bagdad museum was
> debunked by journalists later investigating it. This was done several
> months ago.
>
enough to protect the place - so when the museum was loathed there was
no security at all. The Bush- administration had been told about the
risk of loating beforehand, both by people in Bagdad and Mr.
president's own art-advisors. Lots of "minor" things were sweft down
from the shelves and destroyed by loaters. Other more valuable, and
moveable, treasures were stolen. Things stolen might of course be
returned over time.
Both Bush, or Rumsfeldt, and Blair should have resigned from office
since they are responsible for this security scandal. Blair is even so
"stupid" that he sings "Je ne rien" at the moment. I don't know if the
two gentlemen will survive politically, but if so, it is a great
disgrace for the nations containing them.
>
> Picasso when through many phases--Blue, Rose, Neo-classical,
> constructions, Cubist, etc. There are many powerful images there. He
> used simplified classicism during the Rose period, for example the
> pierrot images.
The Bull-serie is also interesting - going from a realistic drawing to
pure outlines.
Miriam
Peter H.M. Brooks
> hu...@myself.com (Dilettante) wrote in message
news:<ba63903f.03100...@posting.google.com>...
> > pos...@chello.no (Miriam) wrote in message
> >
> > The story about the destruction of art works in the Bagdad museum was
> > debunked by journalists later investigating it. This was done several
> > months ago.
> >
> "They" couln't find 3 tanks and 30 soldiers, out of 120 000(?) -
> enough to protect the place - so when the museum was loathed
>
looking for. Loathing is something quite different.
--
'It's a trifle if twenty millions or so die.' - Lenin on the 1921 Soviet
famine, reported in is Obituary in The Times
Erik A. Mattila
Dilettante wrote:
> pos...@chello.no (Miriam) wrote in message
>
> The story about the destruction of art works in the Bagdad museum was
> debunked by journalists later investigating it. This was done several
> months ago.
That's a pretty brazen claim - can you provide a citation to this
"debunking"? But the primary issue was looting, insofar as the press
was concerned. Outright destruction was a sub-issue, and included the
all-important accession records and also included historical documents.
So reconstruction the records must occur before any accurate
assessment of looting and destruction can be made. Here's one web site
that addresses the over all issue systematically:
http://cctr.umkc.edu/user/fdeblauwe/iraq.html
------------------begin quote-------------
My best guess of the Losses & Damage at the National Museum
(very approximate numbers based on all available info, my evaluation of
the quality of same info, and lots of extrapolation and common sense;
updated whenever new info changes the picture)
• 600 artifacts on display: 17% missing, 42% damaged
• 491,418 artifacts in Museum storage rooms: 2% missing, 4% damaged
• 616 artifacts in storage in Central Bank: 0% missing, 3% damaged
• 8,366 artifacts in secret storage location: 0% missing, 2% damaged
501,000 artifacts in total, of which 2% (10,936) missing and 4% (18,568)
damaged
-------------------end quote---------------------
Naturally, there is no way of knowing if the artifact still missing have
been damaged or destroyed. So where's this "debunking"?
Erik
Erik A. Mattila
Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
> "Miriam" <pos...@chello.no> wrote in message
> news:c37739c3.03100...@posting.google.com...
>
>>hu...@myself.com (Dilettante) wrote in message
>
> news:<ba63903f.03100...@posting.google.com>...
>
>>>pos...@chello.no (Miriam) wrote in message
>>>
>>>The story about the destruction of art works in the Bagdad museum was
>>>debunked by journalists later investigating it. This was done several
>>>months ago.
>>>
>>
>>"They" couln't find 3 tanks and 30 soldiers, out of 120 000(?) -
>>enough to protect the place - so when the museum was loathed
>>
>
> 'looted', 'looter' and 'looting', the taking of loot are the words you are
> looking for. Loathing is something quite different.
You may be right, Peter, but on the other hand, it's not too far-fetched
to imagine that the Likudniks in the Bush Administration "loathed" Iraqi
Art Museums.
Erik
>
>
J. Man
It pains me when people talk about Picasso in such a way. It's like
saying that Cezanne was a slob, or that Van Gogh was color blind.
If Picasso's early works are, by your standard, "just okay" then why
is he so famous? And why did he receive the ranking of Master of Fine
Arts from the Spanish Arts Council when he was just 14 years old?
Just think about it. If YOU were to be a Master in Fine Art at the age
of 14, that means you've already mastered things like perspective,
anatomy, color, etc. So, what do you paint next? When you've already
attained both the consciousness of a master craftsman AND the skill
level to match it at 14 years old, where do you go with your skill?
Picasso became very famous very quick because he knew how to be a
chamelion with his art, changing and growing and expanding his styles.
If you were to actually read any of the hundreds of books which
chronicle his body of work, you'd see clearly that his "third rate
cartoonist" style came only at the very end of his career, near toward
his death.
That's like saying the Beatles were a third rate lounge act [at the
end of their band career]. It is utterly ridiculous, imho, that your
opinion of Picasso's work is "just okay" or considered "third rate."
Just to understand better, could you perhaps give reference to whom
YOU would consider a Master or at lease a "first rate" artist? I'd
really enjoy sharing this debate with you further.
Small note of Picasso's last words he'd said at dinner the night
before he died:
"Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can't drink anymore. Now,
I must go back to work." He went back to his studio and painted until
three a.m. He died the next morning at 91 years of age.
During the final year of his life, Picasso produced over 200 original
pieces alone in his studio.
He was 90 years old!
Think about it.
Lauri Levanto
Mani Deli ranted:
> I'm not interested in how he (Picasso) did it. I consider the results
> horrible.
> What's on the wall is what counts.
As in an earlier post you mnetioned:
"Art is a value judgment by viewers."
So you are only telling the well-known fact that there is art you don't
understand.
> I think he was average even as a student.
That's your *opinion*. His teachers thought otherwise.
If you were right, it proves that comprehensive study of classical methods
does not help.
By the way thanks for your sober posting about "Drawing".
>
> So what. My point is that this third rate cartoon (Guernica) isn't great
> art.
> Picasso's drawing skills are on the level of a
> third rate cartoonist.
Can you name three second or first level cartoonist that draw better than
Picasso?
-lauri
Semi Anne
>Naturally, there is no way of knowing if the artifact still missing have
>been damaged or destroyed. So where's this "debunking"?
There's a good article in the October, 2003 issue
of National Geographic titled "Beyone the Looting"
which addresses the ongoing looting of historic
and archeologically signficant sites in Iraq.
Somewhere I also read about a collection of
solid gold jewelry that was found in storage. It
had previously been reported stolen. And that is
true of other "presumed stolen" articles that
have turned up since the end of the war of occupation.
Incidentally, the same issue of National Geographic
has, as its cover story, a revealing if not revealing
enough article on Saudi Arabia and its current
cultural struggles.
Mani Deli
>It pains me when people talk about Picasso in such a way. It's like
>saying that Cezanne was a slob, or that Van Gogh was color blind.
>
>If Picasso's early works are, by your standard, "just okay" then why
>is he so famous?
Lots of far worse artist are famous.
> And why did he receive the ranking of Master of Fine
>Arts from the Spanish Arts Council when he was just 14 years old?
Why not?
>Just think about it. If YOU were to be a Master in Fine Art at the age
>of 14, that means you've already mastered things like perspective,
>anatomy, color, etc.
It doesn't Picasso gives no indication of knowing perspective or
anatomy. I think his color was good on occasion.
> So, what do you paint next? When you've already
>attained both the consciousness of a master craftsman AND the skill
>level to match it at 14 years old, where do you go with your skill?
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. He learned
surprisingly little perspective, however, which always left his
paintings looking partially flat. Picasso was lucky in this; he lived
in an age where flatness was to become increasingly fashionable.
By the age of thirteen, Picasso was producing academic-style work
which was up to the standard of a much older student. These student
works are interesting and paradoxical. Compared to the finest academic
paintings, these early works could only be classified as not much
better than awful. They are full of youthful errors. They are today
very valuable in monetary terms but were they not genuine Picasso's,
they would be considered fairly worthless. Nevertheless, as the
product of someone so young, they reveal an artist who showed much
promise, a promise which was never fulfilled.
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!"
M.A. 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 skill. These academic works
already hint at his future. They exhibit careless proportion and a
lack of ability in creating detail. Even at his best Picasso was a
mediocre draftsman early on and always thereafter.
In his 1897 "Science and Charity," [ILLUSTRATION] one can clearly see
all kinds of errors even in small reproductions. This picture, which
is very large and very uninteresting, shows no originality. The aim of
the picture was to portray sentiment and realism in the academic
style. Here, especially in rendering the cloth, Picasso sacrifices
care to speed. Neither the mirror over the bed nor the wall cabinet is
in perspective with the flat looking bed. The face of the nun and her
hand are carelessly rendered. The stripes on the blanket are wrong.
Errors here show rather glaringly because the aim of this painting was
full realism. Any form of highly realistic painting magnifies even the
smallest error. With M.A. almost any "error" can be made to disappear
and just about everything can be left askew. Much M.A. could be seen
as a balance of errors which the critics call distortions. All this
passes unnoticed to an eye which has grown accustomed to seeing these
so called distortions.
Picasso's best most technically correct early portraits are in reality
little more than correct. They are conventional and show no particular
creative flair. None really outranks the work of a very ordinary,
though perhaps older, street-corner portraitist. In truth these works
are far less amazing than ecstatic M.A. critics like to make out.
It is certainly true, as some critics claim, that Picasso painted like
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 ranked by some among the "greatest artists who ever lived."
I challenge anyone here to tell us what is particularly good about any
particular Picasso student work. As to his vanity in imagining himself
close to Raphael its vanity.
>Just to understand better, could you perhaps give reference to whom
>YOU would consider a Master or at lease a "first rate" artist? I'd
>really enjoy sharing this debate with you further.
Check my web page.
>During the final year of his life, Picasso produced over 200 original
>pieces alone in his studio.
One worse than the next.
>He was 90 years old!
>
>Think about it.
Tired of Modern Art? See-
http://www3.sympatico.ca/manideli/
Mani Deli
wrote:
>
>
>Mani Deli ranted:
>
>> I'm not interested in how he (Picasso) did it. I consider the results
>> horrible.
>> What's on the wall is what counts.
>
>As in an earlier post you mnetioned:
>"Art is a value judgment by viewers."
So?
>
>So you are only telling the well-known fact that there is art you don't
>understand.
If you "understand" Picasso tell us what you claim to understand that
I don't! I never used the word understand because art isn't something
which is literally understood.
>
>> I think he was average even as a student.
>
>That's your *opinion*. His teachers thought otherwise.
>If you were right, it proves that comprehensive study of classical methods
>does not help.
It doesn't prove anything.
>By the way thanks for your sober posting about "Drawing".
>
>>
>> So what. My point is that this third rate cartoon (Guernica) isn't great
>> art.
>> Picasso's drawing skills are on the level of a
>> third rate cartoonist.
>
>Can you name three second or first level cartoonist that draw better than
>Picasso?
>
Any Disney artist, Crumb, Alex Raymond, Stan Lee, Etc. Etc
Lauri Levanto
Mani Deli wrote:
>
> >Can you name three second or first level cartoonist that draw better than
> >Picasso?
> >
> Any Disney artist, Crumb, Alex Raymond, Stan Lee, Etc. Etc
>
You mean they are not sloppy in detail, do not distort proportions, elaborate
perfectly
roundness in light and shadow?
-lauri
Miriam
> >
> 'looted', 'looter' and 'looting', the taking of loot are the words you are
> looking for. Loathing is something quite different.
Looters, yes. Thanks. Loot a loathe.
Miriam.
Miriam
> >As in an earlier post you mnetioned:
> >"Art is a value judgment by viewers."
>
> So?
> >
This "no skill - no art" is a pure aestetichal vandetta. Your days
must be quite distressing. Each time you look into a mirror you see a
"modernist" figure. Better times is underway. It wont be long before
the Photoshop retouch function is automatically applied to all
mirrors.
Some artist may be underrated by galleries and modern art institution.
Your approach is to say that everybody in the museums should be thrown
out, and substituted with your choices.
As a person Dali is one of modern arts worst assholes, shaking hands
with Franco after the war. This in spite of murders on people he even
knew personally. As a student, he went on holidays with Lorca who was
later killed by a fascistic mob in 36. Because Lorca was guy, I
believe. Was Dali unskilled? Of course not.
Cezanne and Picasso used outlines on their figures, not shadows.
Picasso in some of his paintings, not all - sometimes it works out,
sometimes not, as I see it. Have u given it any thoughts? You are not
completely credible in your critics, to say it mildly. Cezannne and
Picasso unskilled? Of course not.
Miriam.
Loot a loathe, not art.
Mani Deli
wrote:
>
>
>Mani Deli wrote:
>
>>
>> >Can you name three second or first level cartoonist that draw better than
>> >Picasso?
>> >
>> Any Disney artist, Crumb, Alex Raymond, Stan Lee, Etc. Etc
>>
>
>You mean they are not sloppy in detail, do not distort proportions,
They don't distort proportions?
>elaborate
>perfectly
>roundness in light and shadow?
I mean they are far better artists then Picasso etc.
Lauri Levanto
Mani Deli wrote:
> On Fri, 03 Oct 2003 10:34:22 +0300, Lauri Levanto <laur...@netti.fi>
> wrote:
>
>
> >> >Can you name three second or first level cartoonist that draw better than
> >> >Picasso?
> >> >
> >> Any Disney artist, Crumb, Alex Raymond, Stan Lee, Etc. Etc
> >>
> >
> >You mean they are not sloppy in detail, do not distort proportions,
>
> They don't distort proportions?
>
> >elaborate perfectly roundness in light and shadow?
>
> I mean they are far better artists then Picasso etc.
>
So all the "Scientific truth" boils down to the fact
that Donald Duck is the kind of art you understand
-lauri
Mani Deli
>This "no skill - no art" is a pure aestetichal vandetta.
Yes it irritates the hell out of those who have no skill. Lets see
your work. I bet it will reveal why those four word distress you.
>Your days
>must be quite distressing. Each time you look into a mirror you see a
>"modernist" figure. Better times is underway. It wont be long before
>the Photoshop retouch function is automatically applied to all
>mirrors.
It always amusing to see modern art fundamentalists go off on
psychobabble. They need to imagine that anyone who disagrees with them
is distressed etc.
>
>Some artist may be underrated by galleries and modern art institution.
>Your approach is to say that everybody in the museums should be thrown
>out, and substituted with your choices.
I say no such thing. Read my Modest Proposal.
>As a person Dali is one of modern arts worst assholes, shaking hands
>with Franco after the war. This in spite of murders on people he even
>knew personally. As a student, he went on holidays with Lorca who was
>later killed by a fascistic mob in 36. Because Lorca was guy, I
>believe. Was Dali unskilled? Of course not.
I judge Dali by his artwork. I don't think the reason that Picasso's
work is inferior because he was a communist or Nolde's because he was
a Nazi.
>Cezanne and Picasso used outlines on their figures, not shadows.
Both Picasso and Cezanne used light and shade, poorly.
>Picasso in some of his paintings, not all - sometimes it works out,
>sometimes not, as I see it. Have u given it any thoughts?
Read my Picasso messages.
>You are not
>completely credible in your critics, to say it mildly. Cezannne and
>Picasso unskilled? Of course not.
>
I people would take a carefull look at artwork instead of believing
what being told what to imagine most Modern Art
Mike Stengl
I must admit, when I have the opportunity to view a Picasso or Cezanne
painting I come to it with this massive weight of respect and awe
clammering to view the wonder and I am consistantly underwhelmed.
Picasso's work is mainly ugly (not all) and Cezanne's strike me as
clumsy. This is of course only one man's opinion, but as I squint and
stare and hurt my brain trying to see what I am missing when I view
these pieces I realise it could just be me but as a painter I've tried
very hard to see what it is I'm suppose to be seeing. It is not in my
best interest to just scoff and walk away from what the experts tell
us is genious, but I've come up mainly empty. It is possible and
perhaps probable that the liberties these men (along with others) took
with painting somehow have given me the freedom to distort the
contents of my own painting as I see fit and which I enjoy immensely,
but I still ask for more in a work of art than I find in the paintings
of Picasso or Cezanne.
As I've mentioned before, however, I enjoy reading about their passion
for/and thoughts about the art they were creating as it strikes the
chord in me that their paintings miss.
Mani Deli
wrote:
>So all the "Scientific truth" boils down to the fact
>that Donald Duck is the kind of art you understand
>
>-lauri
This conclusion addresses the state of your intelligence.
About one minute of Dumbo has better examples of modern art
abstraction combined with superb drawing, color, composition and skill
etc. then about 90% of the crap in museums which you claim to
understand.
I remind you to tell us what you "understand" about Picasso that I
don't . Bet he can't answer!
And of course lets see your work which I'm sure contains all the
scientific truth which you have so easily learned.
Miriam
> Yes it irritates the hell out of those who have no skill.
What I have said - Picasso wasn't "unskilled". It is a fact. Most
"modernists" were "skilled".
Nothing in this debate irritates the hell out of me. You are free to
interpret that as you like.
Miriam
Dilettante
> Mani Deli <ma...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message news:<mkrunv8hou0tdd1f7...@4ax.com>...
>
>
> I must admit, when I have the opportunity to view a Picasso or Cezanne
> painting I come to it with this massive weight of respect and awe
> clammering to view the wonder and I am consistantly underwhelmed.
> Picasso's work is mainly ugly (not all) and Cezanne's strike me as
> clumsy. This is of course only one man's opinion, but as I squint and
> stare and hurt my brain trying to see what I am missing when I view
> these pieces I realise it could just be me but as a painter I've tried
> very hard to see what it is I'm suppose to be seeing.
Cezanne was working on the idea that the picture should be boiled down
to three geometric shapes.
"... treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone,
everything brought into proper perspective so that each side of an
object or a plane is directed towards a central point. Lines parallel
to the horizon give breadth... lines perpendicular to this horizon
give depth. But nature for us men is more depth than surface, whence
the need to introduce into our light vibrations, represented by the
reds and yellows, a sufficient amount of blueness to give the feel of
air."
Paul Cézanne to Emile Bernard, 15 april 1904
How did you feel about this when viewing Cezanne?
Dilettante
Mani Deli
>Cezanne was working on the idea that the picture should be boiled down
>to three geometric shapes.
Which he was unable to draw,
>"... treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone,
>everything brought into proper perspective so that each side of an
>object or a plane is directed towards a central point.
This is because all he knew about the subject is that lines receed to
a point. He didn't have any idea about perspective.
> Lines parallel
>to the horizon give breadth... lines perpendicular to this horizon
>give depth.
Useless baloney!
> But nature for us men is more depth than surface, whence
>the need to introduce into our light vibrations, represented by the
>reds and yellows, a sufficient amount of blueness to give the feel of
>air."
Good advice for those who will never learn how to paint.
>Paul Cézanne to Emile Bernard, 15 april 1904
>
>How did you feel about this when viewing Cezanne?
>
The guy is a fumbleklotz. He's among the founding fathers of
no-skill-realism although he's a lot better than Matisse and far less
stupid.
If more people looked carefully at modern art instead of just
believing what they have been told a lot of critics would go out of
fashion quite suddenly.
Edward G. Nilges
> On 1 Oct 2003 18:16:20 -0700, jah...@technologist.com (J. Man) wrote:
>
>
> >It pains me when people talk about Picasso in such a way. It's like
> >saying that Cezanne was a slob, or that Van Gogh was color blind.
> >
> >If Picasso's early works are, by your standard, "just okay" then why
> >is he so famous?
>
> Lots of far worse artist are famous.
Burns your ass, I know...
>
> > And why did he receive the ranking of Master of Fine
> >Arts from the Spanish Arts Council when he was just 14 years old?
>
> Why not?
Boy that was smart. He did. Answer the question.
>
> >Just think about it. If YOU were to be a Master in Fine Art at the age
> >of 14, that means you've already mastered things like perspective,
> >anatomy, color, etc.
>
> It doesn't Picasso gives no indication of knowing perspective or
> anatomy. I think his color was good on occasion.
He wasn't working for you, and seldom painted scenes of architecture.
He was more interested in the human body which TRADITIONAL art prizes
above landscape and of course his ability to order bodies in
perspective was better than yours...by far.
Your "surrealism" actually is a cop-out because it excuses you from a
naturalistic ordering of bodies in naturalistic space.
Whereas during several periods in his life, Picasso displayed this
ability, including the Blue and the Rose periods and late in life when
he drew his series of Minotaurs and nudes.
>
> > So, what do you paint next? When you've already
> >attained both the consciousness of a master craftsman AND the skill
> >level to match it at 14 years old, where do you go with your skill?
>
> 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. He learned
> surprisingly little perspective, however, which always left his
> paintings looking partially flat. Picasso was lucky in this; he lived
> in an age where flatness was to become increasingly fashionable.
It was becoming fashionable for a very good reason. PHOTOGRAPHY had
taken over any need for the perspective depth and the depth of Salon
art was a silly and government mandated effort to put photographic
technology in its place.
Some of us are interested in painting per se. I suggest you take up
photography.
>
> By the age of thirteen, Picasso was producing academic-style work
> which was up to the standard of a much older student. These student
> works are interesting and paradoxical. Compared to the finest academic
> paintings, these early works could only be classified as not much
> better than awful. They are full of youthful errors. They are today
> very valuable in monetary terms but were they not genuine Picasso's,
> they would be considered fairly worthless. Nevertheless, as the
> product of someone so young, they reveal an artist who showed much
> promise, a promise which was never fulfilled.
>
Yeah, he should have joined the Falange, I know.
> 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!"
>
They are right. You don't understand because understanding art takes a
little love, which you don't show. You actually want artists to
foolishly ape cameras.
> M.A. 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 skill. These academic works
> already hint at his future. They exhibit careless proportion and a
> lack of ability in creating detail. Even at his best Picasso was a
> mediocre draftsman early on and always thereafter.
>
> In his 1897 "Science and Charity," [ILLUSTRATION] one can clearly see
> all kinds of errors even in small reproductions. This picture, which
> is very large and very uninteresting, shows no originality. The aim of
> the picture was to portray sentiment and realism in the academic
> style. Here, especially in rendering the cloth, Picasso sacrifices
> care to speed. Neither the mirror over the bed nor the wall cabinet is
> in perspective with the flat looking bed. The face of the nun and her
> hand are carelessly rendered. The stripes on the blanket are wrong.
>
> Errors here show rather glaringly because the aim of this painting was
> full realism. Any form of highly realistic painting magnifies even the
> smallest error. With M.A. almost any "error" can be made to disappear
> and just about everything can be left askew. Much M.A. could be seen
> as a balance of errors which the critics call distortions. All this
> passes unnoticed to an eye which has grown accustomed to seeing these
> so called distortions.
>
> Picasso's best most technically correct early portraits are in reality
> little more than correct. They are conventional and show no particular
> creative flair. None really outranks the work of a very ordinary,
This is absurd. On the one hand you demand utter faith to perspective
and on the other hand you demand a "creative flair" which upon
examination turns out to be only the ability to select a suitably
pornographic, sexist, racist, and colonialist subject of sufficient
appeal to white men with money, such as "ooo butt naked girls on the
beach" (Bouguereau) or "oooo a glorious battle with chaps on the
ground looking thoughtful" (Meissonnier) or "ooooo Monday Night
Football" (Leroy Neiman).
In fact, merely by using the semiotic of the lamp in Guernica, Picasso
summarises and prophesies the entire dialectic of the modern age, in
which that technology which illuminates also destroys. But this is a
complex thought which might tax you.
> though perhaps older, street-corner portraitist. In truth these works
> are far less amazing than ecstatic M.A. critics like to make out.
>
> It is certainly true, as some critics claim, that Picasso painted like
> 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 ranked by some among the "greatest artists who ever lived."
>
> I challenge anyone here to tell us what is particularly good about any
> particular Picasso student work. As to his vanity in imagining himself
> close to Raphael its vanity.
>
> >Just to understand better, could you perhaps give reference to whom
> >YOU would consider a Master or at lease a "first rate" artist? I'd
> >really enjoy sharing this debate with you further.
>
> Check my web page.
>
> >During the final year of his life, Picasso produced over 200 original
> >pieces alone in his studio.
>
> One worse than the next.
They may disturb you, since in the dialectic of the Minotaur and the
goddess they express Picasso's feelings, common to REAL artists, of
womb envy. But at least they get to the zone of viewing women as
anything but Bouguereau nymphs fit only for Paris. They said of Paris
during Bouguereau that women were only good at two things, and one of
them was discovering radium.
>
> >He was 90 years old!
> >
> >Think about it.
You are wasting yer time with this head case but thank you ever so
much for your facts. They confirm mine in greater detail, because it
has been a while since I studied art history.
Sometimes, to relax, I mosey over and have at Mani Deli. He is an
amusing fellow.