Picasso's Gertrude Stein
mdeli
A good early example of No Skill Realism is Picasso’s "Portrait of
Gertrude Stein" (1906). I have seen it in the museum many times and
always wondered why it should hang there.
I challenge anyone here to deny that if this painting was hanging
among others in some university hallway among the usual portraits and
signed R. Mutt it would be judged the worst and would never get a
second look. No street corner portraitist would get paid for such a
hack work.
Perhaps someone here will provide a more complimentary version of my
critique.
Picasso is said to have worked extremely hard on the Gertrude Stein
portrait taking many sittings and then revising it without the model a
year later.
Here we have a very conventional portrait. The placement and
composition are utterly conventional. The face and hands are solid
although the rest is far less finished.
The eyes and part of the mouth are like decals that have been
transferred to a solid head which looks like it was sculpted in rough,
carelessly tinted plaster. The wig looks like a mud flap that is
beginning to slide down the face and along the side of a flat pancake
ear. Unable to realistically separate the background and the cheek,
Picasso drew a brown line around it.
In order to get the best overview of the rest of this painting, cover
the face with a scrap of paper torn to fit over it and look at the
remainder of the picture. Note the "brown sauce" effect which is a
term accusingly used to point out a characteristic of academic
monotony. The solidity of the head and hands give way to a body which
is little more than an amorphous brown blob. Under a little scrutiny
the background deteriorates into a lot of dry brown crudely blended
schmier. Even the color is terrible and doesn’t display Picasso’s
colorist’s skill.
--
Mani DeLi
...no skill no art
Check out my webpage to see some of my work and a Skeptical View of Modern Art at: http://www.interlog.com/~hugod
Philip Ayers
In article <353ae0cc...@news.interlog.com>, hug...@interlog.com
(mdeli) wrote:
: > A good early example of No Skill Realism is Picasso’s "Portrait of
: > Gertrude Stein" (1906). I have seen it in the museum many times and
: > always wondered why it should hang there.
: >
: > I challenge anyone here to deny that if this painting was hanging
: > among others in some university hallway among the usual portraits and
: > signed R. Mutt it would be judged the worst and would never get a
: > second look. No street corner portraitist would get paid for such a
: > hack work.
: >
: > Perhaps someone here will provide a more complimentary version of my
: > critique.
: >
: > Picasso is said to have worked extremely hard on the Gertrude Stein
: > portrait taking many sittings and then revising it without the model a
: > year later.
: >
: > Here we have a very conventional portrait. The placement and
: > composition are utterly conventional. The face and hands are solid
: > although the rest is far less finished.
: >
: > The eyes and part of the mouth are like decals that have been
: > transferred to a solid head which looks like it was sculpted in rough,
: > carelessly tinted plaster. The wig looks like a mud flap that is
: > beginning to slide down the face and along the side of a flat pancake
: > ear. Unable to realistically separate the background and the cheek,
: > Picasso drew a brown line around it.
Ignorance is the problem here and it ain't Picasso who's ignorant!
: > In order to get the best overview of the rest of this painting, cover
: > the face with a scrap of paper torn to fit over it and look at the
: > remainder of the picture. Note the "brown sauce" effect which is a
: > term accusingly used to point out a characteristic of academic
: > monotony. The solidity of the head and hands give way to a body which
: > is little more than an amorphous brown blob. Under a little scrutiny
: > the background deteriorates into a lot of dry brown crudely blended
: > schmier. Even the color is terrible and doesn’t display Picasso’s
: > colorist’s skill.
: >
: > --
: > Mani DeLi
: > ...no skill no art
Oh Ignorant One-
IF ONE IS SERVED CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM , WOULD IT NOT BE BETTER TO ENJOY THE
FLAVOR -CHOCOLATE- RATHER THAN COMPLAIN SO MUCH THAT IT ISN'T STRAWBERRY?
MAYBE YOU ONLY LIKE VANILLA. Maybe you don't even like Ice Cream. So don't
have it. (In case you are completely without reason, I use ice cream
flavors here as metaphors for different artists, or different kinds of
art. After all, we are talking about something that is about human
expression and in the end human freedom. There is no big rule that says
that everything must be done like this or that. It's up to the artist.
Many of artists and art lovers like Picasso. You aren't one of them. You
don't even know what good draftsmanship is, know it from a smear or a
spear or an ear. -You- my good fellow are ignorant one!)
Maybe you'd be a lot better suited for the political right & politics
...next to the liar Newt Gingrich who told so many lies about the National
Endowment For the Arts.. ...and -maybe-, just maybe you should switch to a
Mac as your post has a lot of garbage in the text.
Good day.
Philip (never Phil) Ayers
http://www.mindspring.com/~p.ayers/
p.a...@mindspring.com.
Marilyn
Philip Ayers wrote:
>
> In article <353ae0cc...@news.interlog.com>, hug...@interlog.com
> (mdeli) wrote:
>
> : > A good early example of No Skill Realism is Picasso’s "Portrait of Gertrude Stein"
snipped
Philip why don't you ask mdeli why she is so fascinated with this
painting.
Mdeli constantly examines it, talks about it, tries to engage in debates
about it. What she may not know is that it took 80 sittings, that
Picasso and Gertrude had a very interesting relationship, that
this is Picasso's interpretation of Gertrude Stein.
If she read Gertrude Stein's works, and read the letters
between the two she might understand the painting better.
Hell, Gertrude accepted it, and she was a good art critic.
This painting is the product of their relationship.
But mdeli continues to think like a machine, a camera.
Picasso from beyond the grave continues to annoy mdeli.
The painting is successful then, because the man loved to
irritate and annoy people.
Bravo Picasso! You live on in cyberspace.
Marilyn
Philip Ayers
: > Bravo Picasso! You live on in cyberspace.
: >
: > Marilyn
Well I don't care about cyber space, as some mighty fine paintings by
Picasso can be seen in Washinton and Chicago, not to mention NYCity! As
for our ms.mr. Mdeli, "it" wouldn't know art even if it said hello 'cause
Mdeli is a dull reasoning conservative right wing gingrich loving
reactionary, with no artistic sensablility -et all-! ......Did Picasso
paint some dogs? , you bet, quite a few actually, but his best work is
still inventive and fresh. As for Matisse, I love his paintings,
especially the ones that hang in the Modern and the few that hang in
Boston at the MFA. Matisse -wasn't- even a great draftsman as Picasso
was, and still he manages to be great! Do you wonder why?.......
Over.
DFRussell
In article <p.ayers-2104...@ip151.princeton.nj.pub-ip.psi.net>, p.a...@mindspring.com (Philip Ayers) writes:
|>
|> : > Bravo Picasso! You live on in cyberspace.
|> : >
|> : > Marilyn
|>
|> Well I don't care about cyber space, as some mighty fine paintings by
|> Picasso can be seen in Washinton and Chicago, not to mention NYCity! As
|> for our ms.mr. Mdeli, "it" wouldn't know art even if it said hello
Mr. Ayers,
Your personal political beliefs have nothing to do with art, and your
personal preferences -- like Mr. Deli's -- prove nothing about
art. If you want to discuss politics, why not switch to where
someone cares?
Also, since you feel obligated to trash anyone who dares to state
an opinion which doesn't agree with yours, your belief in your
own opinions is somewhat suspect.
|> 'cause
|> Mdeli is a dull reasoning conservative right wing gingrich loving
|> reactionary, with no artistic sensablility -et all-!
Possibly the reason you haven't been more successful as an artist is
that you insist on insulting the people who have the resources to
purchase your paintings...?
Oh, well.... pointless exercise :-)
--
Views expressed are personal and not necessarily shared by my employer.
Philip Ayers
In article <6hit4m$1ec2$1...@rtpnews.raleigh.ibm.com>, d...@nospam.com
(DFRussell) wrote:
: > Mr. Ayers,
: >
: > Your personal political beliefs have nothing to do with art, and your
: > personal preferences -- like Mr. Deli's -- prove nothing about
: > art. If you want to discuss politics, why not switch to where
: > someone cares?
: > Possibly the reason you haven't been more successful as an artist is
: > that you insist on insulting the people who have the resources to
: > purchase your paintings...?
Blow hard -
How would you know how successful I've been?
If you want to flame go ahead but at least do a respectable job
........ and if you care to read the other post I've nailed to this list
you'd be better equiped to state an opinion.
Other wise drop dead.
Marilyn
Philip Ayers wrote:
>
> : > Bravo Picasso! You live on in cyberspace.
> : >
> : > Marilyn
>
> Well I don't care about cyber space, as some mighty fine paintings by
> Picasso can be seen in Washinton and Chicago, not to mention NYCity! As
> Mdeli is a dull reasoning conservative right wing gingrich loving
> paint some dogs? , you bet, quite a few actually, but his best work is
> still inventive and fresh. As for Matisse, I love his paintings,
> especially the ones that hang in the Modern and the few that hang in
> Boston at the MFA. Matisse -wasn't- even a great draftsman as Picasso
> was, and still he manages to be great! Do you wonder why?.......
> Over.
>
Picasso lives on here, just by the mention of his name...
Matisse had something to say about those who criticized his drawing
(draftsmanship) not the exact quote but he said that young artists
should not attempt to copy his style because his distortions etc.
had evolved over the years. In other words he let go of the classical
drawing of Ingres and created his own ground-breaking style, allowing
colour to dominate. For anyone to say that he can't draw, they only
have to look at his lines, whew, no use talking about it.
The masters will always have little critics complaining about them
but it is
like mosquitos biting elephants...
bye now
Marilyn
Philip Ayers
In article <353D17...@island.net>, Marilyn <anti...@island.net> wrote:
Well I agree, but I was using the word, draftsmanship, the way some
"academics" & ms.Mdil use it, which is not to say I don't like the way
Matisse draws, just the opposite is true,... and thanks for pointing out
his color abilities, inventive and @!@*, but i would add that the way
Matisse used shape and his expressive use of line always make his
paintings appear to be beautiful studies of his own interesting thought
process.
Philip Ayers
In article <353d35ad...@news.mindspring.com>, nobody@localhost wrote:
: > p.a...@mindspring.com (Philip Ayers) wrote:
: >
: > >In article <6hit4m$1ec2$1...@rtpnews.raleigh.ibm.com>, d...@nospam.com
: > >(DFRussell) wrote:
: > >
: > >
: > >: > Mr. Ayers,
: > >: >
: > >: > Your personal political beliefs have nothing to do with art, and your
: > >: > personal preferences -- like Mr. Deli's -- prove nothing about
: > >: > art. If you want to discuss politics, why not switch to where
: > >: > someone cares?
: > >
: > >: > Possibly the reason you haven't been more successful as an artist is
: > >: > that you insist on insulting the people who have the resources to
: > >: > purchase your paintings...?
: > >
: > >Blow hard -
: > >How would you know how successful I've been?
: >
: > [laughing on the floor]
: >
: > Hey, phil, it's not like you didn't post your website.... he probably
: > made the mistake of looking at your paintings (gag).
: >
: > >If you want to flame go ahead but at least do a respectable job
: >
: > You do a lot better job of making a fool out of yourself than anyone
: > else here ever has..... hey! Does that count as performance
: > art......?
: >
: > You're really just puttin' us on about the paintings and this entire
: > thing is just a complicated piece of performance art.....
: >
: > This is really AGRO!!!!! Phil Rules!!!!!
: >
: > Phil! Phil! Phil! Phil! Phil! <heh heh hehe>
: >
: > >........ and if you care to read the other post I've nailed to this list
: > >you'd be better equiped to state an opinion.
: > >Other wise drop dead.
: >
: > You're such a card.
An Ace you dip!
Philip Ayers
In article <353d38f8...@news.mindspring.com>, nobody@localhost wrote:
: > p.a...@mindspring.com (Philip Ayers) wrote:
: >
: > >In article <353D17...@island.net>, Marilyn <anti...@island.net>
wrote:
: > >
: > >: > Philip Ayers wrote:
: > >: > >
: > >: > > : > Bravo Picasso! You live on in cyberspace.
: > >: > > : >
: > >: > > : > Marilyn
: >
: > Let's see.... Marylin -> Phil -> Marylin -> Phil
: >
: > Isn't this really just a co-dependant relationship? I'm wondering,
: > since you two are obviously just having a circle-jerk, why not switch
: > to e-mail or a private channel.... just in case you wanna' do a little
: > one-handed typing there... <wink wink nudge nudge know what I mean>
: >
: > OoooooOOOohhhhhhHHHh PicassooooooooooooOooOOOo!!!!!!!!!
: > oohhhHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Marylin!! Yes! Oh, YESSSSSSSSssssSSSSS!
: > OhhhhahhHHHH, PhillllllllllllllllLLLlLLlllll..... say "Matisse" again!
: > Yes! es!
: >
: > >Well I agree, but I was using the word, draftsmanship, the way some
: > >"academics" & ms.Mdil use it, which is not to say I don't like the way
: > >Matisse draws, just the opposite is true,... and thanks for pointing out
: > >his color abilities, inventive and @!@*, but i would add that the way
: > >Matisse used shape and his expressive use of line always make his
: > >paintings appear to be beautiful studies of his own interesting thought
: > >process.
Marilyn and I know a couple of light weights when we hear'um.
We where just kicking your ignorant butts around the block, thats all moron.
Go cry to yer mommy.
Ninguno
Marilyn <anti...@island.net> wrote:
>Philip Ayers wrote:
>> =
>
>> In article <353ae0cc...@news.interlog.com>, hug...@interlog.com
>> (mdeli) wrote:
>> =
>
>> : > A good early example of No Skill Realism is Picasso=92s "Portrait of=
> Gertrude Stein"
>
>snipped =
>
>
>Philip why don't you ask mdeli why she is so fascinated with this
>painting. =
Marylin, why are you so obsessed with what Mr. Deli thinks?
>Mdeli constantly examines it, talks about it, tries to engage in debates
>about it.
Much like you rattle on about Deli.....
> What she may not know is that it took 80 sittings, that
>Picasso and Gertrude had a very interesting relationship, that
>this is Picasso's interpretation of Gertrude Stein. =
Hey, let's call it an even 10 years that she sat for the painting...
who gives a shit. It says nothing about the painting itself.
>If she read Gertrude Stein's works, and read the letters
>between the two she might understand the painting better.
>Hell, Gertrude accepted it, and she was a good art critic. =
"good art critic" -- what does the fact that she's dead have to do
with it?
>
>This painting is the product of their relationship.
>But mdeli continues to think like a machine, a camera.
I guess this means that he hasn't accepted your viewpoint? :)
You and your soulmate Phil are sooooo predictable :)
Ninguno
Ninguno
Marilyn <anti...@island.net> wrote:
>Philip Ayers wrote:
>>
>> : > Bravo Picasso! You live on in cyberspace.
>> : >
>> : > Marilyn
>The masters will always have little critics complaining about them
>but it is like mosquitos biting elephants...
[laughing]
As opposed to the "artists" sighs of wonder from the droppings left by
those "masters".
But is it "art" :-)
You two must be a lot of laughs at parties.
Ninguno
p.a...@mindspring.com (Philip Ayers) wrote:
>In article <353D17...@island.net>, Marilyn <anti...@island.net> wrote:
>
>: > Philip Ayers wrote:
>: > >
>: > > : > Bravo Picasso! You live on in cyberspace.
>: > > : >
>: > > : > Marilyn
Let's see.... Marylin -> Phil -> Marylin -> Phil
Ninguno
p.a...@mindspring.com (Philip Ayers) wrote:
>In article <353d38f8...@news.mindspring.com>, nobody@localhost wrote:
>Marilyn and I know a couple of light weights when we hear'um.
>We where just kicking your ignorant butts around the block, thats all moron.
>Go cry to yer mommy.
[laughing]
Marilyn never listens to me anyway.....
mdeli
On Tue, 21 Apr 1998 11:27:07 -0700, Marilyn <anti...@island.net>
wrote:
>Philip Ayers wrote:
>> =
>
>> In article <353ae0cc...@news.interlog.com>, hug...@interlog.com
>> (mdeli) wrote:
>> =
>
>> : > A good early example of No Skill Realism is Picasso=92s "Portrait of=
> Gertrude Stein"
>
>snipped =
>
>
>Philip why don't you ask mdeli why she is so fascinated with this
>painting. =
>
I'm a male toots.
>Mdeli constantly examines it, talks about it, tries to engage in debates
>about it.
Baloney. Although I have repeated the message when the subject came
up, its the only message I wrote on the subject.
> What she may not know is that it took 80 sittings,
Which further reveals Picasso's true incompetence.
> that
>Picasso and Gertrude had a very interesting relationship, that
>this is Picasso's interpretation of Gertrude Stein. =
A sack of potatoes with goo-goo eyes.
>If she read Gertrude Stein's works, and read the letters
>between the two she might understand the painting better.
>Hell, Gertrude accepted it, and she was a good art critic. =
I've read Stein including her idiotic biography of Picasso. Stein is a
first class phoney. Her affected stuttering is about as artistic as
the picture in question.
>Picasso from beyond the grave continues to annoy mdeli.
He doesn't annoy me in the least. My comments just continue to annoy
you, along with Dali and Bouguereau.
--
Mani DeLi
...no skill no art
Check out my webpage to see some of my work and a Skeptical View of Modern Art at: http://www.interlog.com/~hugod
DFRussell
In article <p.ayers-2104...@38.26.56.102>, p.a...@mindspring.com (Philip Ayers) writes:
|> In article <6hit4m$1ec2$1...@rtpnews.raleigh.ibm.com>, d...@nospam.com
|> (DFRussell) wrote:
|>
|>
|> : > Mr. Ayers,
|> : >
|> : > Your personal political beliefs have nothing to do with art, and your
|> : > personal preferences -- like Mr. Deli's -- prove nothing about
|> : > art. If you want to discuss politics, why not switch to where
|> : > someone cares?
|>
|> : > Possibly the reason you haven't been more successful as an artist is
|> : > that you insist on insulting the people who have the resources to
|> : > purchase your paintings...?
|>
|> Blow hard -
|> How would you know how successful I've been?
From your own words in your posts....
"intellectually challenging daytime job" ... "don't have much
time to paint"... yadda yadda
|> If you want to flame go ahead but at least do a respectable job
I'm afraid you've [again] assumed that anyone who disagrees with
you is simply intent on "flaming" you. You're mistaken.
What I've typed above isn't a "flame".
|> ........ and if you care to read the other post I've nailed to this list
|> you'd be better equiped to state an opinion.
What point would there be in that?
You've time and again demonstrated that no opinion other than your
own is valid :)
|> Other wise drop dead.
The best art has an ability to draw people into it... to make them
think or feel something. That is, it's really about engaging other
people.... empathy.
Your posts and your paintings seem to lack the ability engage other
people. Something like a writer who thinks that all that is required
for writing a good novel is to follow the syntax of the language....
ignoring semantics.
You are a technically capable painter. Until you understand that
painting isn't about *you*, that is all you will ever be.
Philip Ayers
In article <6hksi5$2450$1...@rtpnews.raleigh.ibm.com>, d...@nospam.com
(DFRussell) wrote:
: > From your own words in your posts....
: >
: > "intellectually challenging daytime job" ... "don't have much
: > time to paint"... yadda yadda
If I wrote this (not sure I did)you've taken it was out of context,
because I'm a painter who has sold enough to live on very nicely, thank
you.
: > The best art has an ability to draw people into it... to make them
: > think or feel something. That is, it's really about engaging other
: > people.... empathy.
: >
: > Your posts and your paintings seem to lack the ability engage other
: > people. Something like a writer who thinks that all that is required
: > for writing a good novel is to follow the syntax of the language....
: > ignoring semantics.
: >
: > You are a technically capable painter. Until you understand that
: > painting isn't about *you*, that is all you will ever be.
: >
: > --
: > Views expressed are personal and not necessarily shared by my employer.
You are intitled to your opinion but many would disagree. My paintings
have been taken serious by some of the best artists in America, believe it
or not.
I don't push my work here but if you'd ever seen the actual paintings
you'd know something.
I've never been a supporter of the idea that reproductions are a good
subsitute for the real experience of looking at an actual painting. My web
pages are only meant as an experiment. Nothing more.
mdeli
On Tue, 21 Apr 1998 15:09:49 -0400, p.a...@mindspring.com (Philip
Ayers) wrote:
As
>for our ms.mr. Mdeli, "it" wouldn't know art even if it said hello 'cause
>Mdeli is a dull reasoning conservative right wing gingrich loving
>reactionary, with no artistic sensablility -et all-!
This might attest to the accuracy of your political labeling.
My message was posted in alt. Religion Christian Titled, "Christian
anti-fuck Crusade.":
We nattering nabobs of nucky naughtiness have suffered a severe
setback with the Jones Decision.
Reverend Foulsmell, Pat Robberson, Lush Bimbo etc. along with our
Christian Fascist Republican Religious Right elected representatives
like Newt Gangrene and Trent Bloodclot, get out there and return this
god chosen nation to its former moral rectitude (more guns, slavery,
school prayer and illegal abortion).
I'm as outraged as Safire of the N Y Times suggested. When the
Pentagon pays $76 for a screw that's ok. After all its run by
upstanding patriots. When the President screws, impeach the bastard.
MD
member: Religious Moralist League (we are for more guns in the home
and legalization of possession small atomic weapons for our protection
from the atheist communist menace.)
Pardon any misspelling. Written in "outraged" haste.
-----------
I'm sure the above message will assure any humorless artzy fartzy like
you that I am indeed as you say " a dull reasoning conservative right
wing gingrich loving reactionary,"
And all because I don't like Picasso and Matisse. Or is it because I
like Disney and Dali?
mdeli
On Tue, 21 Apr 1998 15:01:49 -0700, Marilyn <anti...@island.net>
wrote:
>Picasso lives on here, just by the mention of his name...
As does Bouguereau, Dali and Disney to name a few.
>Matisse had something to say about those who criticized his drawing
>(draftsmanship) not the exact quote but he said that young artists
>should not attempt to copy his style because his distortions etc.
Most students copy his style. They have no choice. If you can't draw,
your stuff will end up looking like Matisse among others.
Bouguereau told Matisse,"you'll never learn to draw."
Matisse carefully followed Bouguereau's advice.
> In other words he let go of the classical
>drawing of Ingres and created his own ground-breaking style, allowing
>colour to dominate.
You can't let go of something you don't have.
Are you referring to his schmiery jelly-bean pallette?
> For anyone to say that he can't draw, they only
>have to look at his lines, whew, no use talking about it.
>
Yes his famous itchy line. The guy couldn't even do scissor cutouts
without getting a sloppy appearance. Try looking at his utterly
idiotic drawings at the Chapel at Vence. Even more stupid than the
"Dance."
Matisse does have some original characteristics. He is an early
advocate of utterly slobby drawing. He also had no color or
compositional sense whatever. This impresses artzy fartzies no end
because they are unfamiliar with student work. It also impresses
students who feel they can do as well. Which they indeed can. However
these days require that you draw worse than Matisse. A formidable
task.
>The masters will always have little critics complaining about them
>but it is like mosquitos biting elephants...
Are you an elephant or just a mother hen?
Ninguno
>
>From your own words in your posts....
>
>"intellectually challenging daytime job" ... "don't have much
>time to paint"... yadda yadda
Phil.....? "Intellectually challenging"...... <heh heh heh> "Did
someone say McDonalds" fry boy?
Philip Ayers
In article <353e7f6...@news.mindspring.com>, nobody@localhost wrote:
: > >
: > >From your own words in your posts....
: > >
: > >"intellectually challenging daytime job" ... "don't have much
: > >time to paint"... yadda yadda
I didn't write this
.....& I could'a swore I flushed your liar's ass down yesterday. I'guess
some shit just won't go down.
Get a life!
Ninguno
p.a...@mindspring.com (Philip Ayers) wrote:
>In article <353e7f6...@news.mindspring.com>, nobody@localhost wrote:
>
>: > >
>: > >From your own words in your posts....
>: > >
>: > >"intellectually challenging daytime job" ... "don't have much
>: > >time to paint"... yadda yadda
>
>I didn't write this
>.....& I could'a swore I flushed your liar's ass down yesterday. I'guess
>some shit just won't go down.
Liar, liar, pants on fire!
Pleasant conversation,
no discourse his due.
Try logic with Phil,
he'll hurl invective at you.
Nicholas E. Southern
Hi Artists and art atudents, my name is Nick and I'm the only deaf Fine
Art (Studio Art) student at the department. Do you know a deaf artist or
student who is interested to talk with me about art? Thanks for your time
reading it and help too if you know one!
Aunty Spam
Marilyn wrote in message <353CE4...@island.net>...
Philip Ayers wrote:
>
> In article <353ae0cc...@news.interlog.com>, hug...@interlog.com
> (mdeli) wrote:
>
> : > A good early example of No Skill Realism is Picasso’s "Portrait of
Gertrude Stein"
snipped
Philip why don't you ask mdeli why she is so fascinated with this
painting.
Mdeli constantly examines it, talks about it, tries to engage in debates
about it. What she may not know is that it took 80 sittings, that
Picasso and Gertrude had a very interesting relationship, that
this is Picasso's interpretation of Gertrude Stein.
Picasso swayed a lot of critics and made pots of money. Does that make him a
great artist?
Even if Picasso was a great artist, does that mean every painting he did was
a masterpiece?
Are all artworks owned/displayed by the Met automatically "good"?
The painting is ugly. Whatever Picasso was trying to accomplish with this
painting, he failed miserably. Maybe that's the ultimate joke: Maybe the Met
really hated Picasso so they bought and hung this one just to show how bad
they thought he was.
As Mani has said, if this painting were signed by an unknown artist, would
it be defended so diligently by Phil Aires?
Cheerio!
Bob C
Aunty Spam wrote:
>
>
> The painting is ugly. Whatever Picasso was trying to accomplish with this
> painting, he failed miserably. Maybe that's the ultimate joke: Maybe the Met
> really hated Picasso so they bought and hung this one just to show how bad
> they thought he was.
>
I suppose it depends a lot on what expectations we bring to the
painting, since I find it to be quite pleasing. Not particularly
beautiful, but not ugly at all.
The composition, based on the classic portrait triangle, is very sound.
It contains a mixture of strong horizontal, vertical, and diagonal
movements which pull your eye around the painting but always ends up
bringing your attention back to the head. The entire surface of the
painting is activated with interesting textures, lines, and shapes. I
also find the subtle blendings of various ochres, siennas, and browns to
be very pleasing, although the quiet and understated harmony created by
these colors is not particularly conducive to the brightly lit and
attention getting setting of the typical major gallery.
But the real interest in the painting is, of course, in the treatment of
the subject matter. What immediately grabs ones attention is that most
of the image is very flat although the head and hands are very strongly
modeled (not realistically modeled and not modeled with the subtle
blending of shadows which can so easily create a convincing 3D affect,
but very strongly modeled nevertheless). The flatness of the body and
background prevents the painting from taking on the typical traditional
role of being a window into some real space existing behind the surface
of the painting. Still, the strong modeling forces it to create a
definite space, and this space turns out to be in front of the painting
rather than behind it.
When I look at this painting there is the feeling of the subject being
able to walk off of the surface, as if the image on the surface is
really Gertrude Stein herself, stored into 2 dimensions using some sort
of compression algorithm. This is very, very different from recording
the 2 dimensional projection of 3D space as seen from a single
viewpoint. Picasso will do away with this space entirely in his best
figurative works, and instead create images which cause one to
reconstruct the object within the space of their own consciousness
rather than somewhere in the real space in front of them.
In works prior to Picasso, the only ones I can recall creating this same
feeling are some of the early paintings of Cezanne. There are certainly
artists who have in a variety of ways been able to capture the subject
itself and not just an image of it, but they did not do it in this
particular manner. And so the success of capturing the physical presence
of Gertrude Stein and the unique way of doing it makes this a very
powerful painting which is able to transcend its rather ordinary surface
esthetics.
- Bob C.
Marilyn
Bob C wrote:
<snipped> interesting, intelligent, thoughtful description
and compositional analysis of
"Gertrude Stein" by Picasso
Hear! Hear & Well said!
Marilyn
mdeli
On Fri, 24 Apr 1998 10:00:57 -0400, Bob C <bob...@erols.com> wrote:
>Aunty Spam wrote:
>>
>>
>> The painting is ugly. Whatever Picasso was trying to accomplish with this
>> painting, he failed miserably. Maybe that's the ultimate joke: Maybe the Met
>> really hated Picasso so they bought and hung this one just to show how bad
>> they thought he was.
>>
>
>I suppose it depends a lot on what expectations we bring to the
>painting, since I find it to be quite pleasing. Not particularly
>beautiful, but not ugly at all.
>
Right, its just plain stupid.
>The composition, based on the classic portrait triangle, is very sound.
Triangle, big deal. So are some frames in any cartoon.
>It contains a mixture of strong horizontal, vertical, and diagonal
>movements which pull your eye around the painting but always ends up
>bringing your attention back to the head.
I like the term " strong horizontal, vertical, and diagonal
movements." Its Artspeak. "Horizontal, vertical, and diagonal," Try
doing a picture without these elements.
>The entire surface of the
>painting is activated with interesting textures, lines, and shapes.
So is the back of the canvas. So What.
I
>also find the subtle blendings of various ochres, siennas, and browns to
>be very pleasing,
To you . Its a bunch of uncontrolled flat drab puce schmiers.
> although the quiet and understated harmony created by
>these colors is not particularly conducive to the brightly lit and
>attention getting setting of the typical major gallery.
Excuses.
>But the real interest in the painting is, of course, in the treatment of
>the subject matter.
Of course. A completely conventional potatoe sack with a wig.
> What immediately grabs ones attention is that most
>of the image is very flat
Boring and incompetently flat. Where did it grab you?
>although the head and hands are very strongly
Strongly flavored sausages
>modeled (not realistically modeled and not modeled with the subtle
>blending of shadows which can so easily create a convincing 3D affect,
But with the childish inability to express any dimension at all.
>but very strongly modeled nevertheless). The flatness of the body and
>background prevents the painting from taking on the typical traditional
>role of being a window into some real space existing behind the surface
>of the painting.
indeed it looks like a grad students work in an art school where no
one was taught to draw.
> Still, the strong modeling forces it to create a
>definite space, and this space turns out to be in front of the painting
>rather than behind it.
Seems you just said it was unconventionally flat.
>When I look at this painting there is the feeling of the subject being
>able to walk off of the surface, as if the image on the surface is
>really Gertrude Stein herself, stored into 2 dimensions using some sort
>of compression algorithm.
Artspeak
> This is very, very different from recording
>the 2 dimensional projection of 3D space as seen from a single
>viewpoint.
Its totally conventional and as incompetent as any of the worst
portraits of professors to be seen in the halls of any university. If
it were signed R. Mutt it wouldn't get further than a Salvation Army
thrift shop.
> Picasso will do away with this space entirely in his best
>figurative works,
Not at all. His most popular figures look like blobs of colored
cement.
> and instead create images which cause one to
>reconstruct the object within the space of their own consciousness
>rather than somewhere in the real space in front of them.
more Artspeak.
>In works prior to Picasso, the only ones I can recall creating this same
>feeling are some of the early paintings of Cezanne.
Check my web page for an analysis of a Cezanne. Even worse than
Picasso. Especially his portraits. He is best of when he sticks to
apples where its practically impossible to get it wrong.
>There are certainly
>artists who have in a variety of ways been able to capture the subject
>itself and not just an image of it,
Whatever that really means.
> but they did not do it in this
>particular manner. And so the success of capturing the physical presence
>of Gertrude Stein and the unique way of doing it makes this a very
>powerful painting which is able to transcend its rather ordinary surface
>esthetics.
Very average Artspeak. Notice that the statement doesn't mean a damned
thing. "powerful" "Transcend" "ordinary surface esthetics."
The painting is an ordinary portrait with no originality in anything.
Bob C
mdeli wrote:
>
> On Fri, 24 Apr 1998 10:00:57 -0400, Bob C <bob...@erols.com> wrote:
>
> >When I look at this painting there is the feeling of the subject being
> >able to walk off of the surface, as if the image on the surface is
> >really Gertrude Stein herself, stored into 2 dimensions using some sort
> >of compression algorithm.
>
> Artspeak
In viewing paintings, I often end up thinking about the space created by
the painting, whether or not I can move into that space, and whether or
not figures in that space can move into mine. Or whether they can move
from the flatness of the canvas into my space. The feeling identified in
that paragraph is a very real one (although it would certainly require a
much lengthier discussion to truly to describe it) and for me it is a
very real part of experiencing art.
From this we conclude that Artspeak is (choose one of the following):
1. anything mani deli does not understand
2. any concept more complex than "its a picture of a horsie"
3. anything using too many multisyllable words
4. all of the above
Is this perhaps a bit nasty? Yes, but M. DeLi deserves every bit of it.
After constantly asking for someone to explain why they like this
painting, I finally gave him an explanation. And all I get in reply is a
set of stock snide comments, ad hominem attacks, and childish
sophistries. for example...
> >
> >... I find it to be quite pleasing. Not particularly
> >beautiful, but not ugly at all.
> >
> Right, its just plain stupid.
>
Stock snide comment from M. DeLi that carefully avoids any direct
response to anything that I am writing. Or consider this one...
>
> > Still, the strong modeling forces it to create a
> >definite space, and this space turns out to be in front of the painting
> >rather than behind it.
>
> Seems you just said it was unconventionally flat.
>
Read the post. I said that hands and face were strongly modeled while
the rest of the painting was unconventionally flat. Let's see what
Webster's says about the verb "model" - "in painting, drawing, etc. to
take on a three-dimensional appearance as a result of contrast in
lighting and color".
d'oh!
Or how about...
>
> > and instead create images which cause one to
> >reconstruct the object within the space of their own consciousness
> >rather than somewhere in the real space in front of them.
>
> more Artspeak.
This clearly demonstrates just how much thought and consideration you've
put into the nature of human consciousness and its relationship to the
use of space and visual metaphor in art. In your defense, though, this
type of knowledge would be completely irrelevant for someone who
stumbles through life in a state of complete mental unconsciousness, so
I guess I can see why you consider this type of concept to have no
value.
- Bob C.
yogi l'huitre
N <lvus...@reading.ac.uk> a écrit le 24-Avr-98 00:12:54, sur 'rec.arts.fine' :
NES> Hi Artists and art atudents, my name is Nick and I'm the only deaf Fine
NES> Art (Studio Art) student at the department. Do you know a deaf artist or
NES> student who is interested to talk with me about art? Thanks for your
NES> time reading it and help too if you know one!
i do :) i'm an art student from france. the probleme is what you mean for Art ? i'm making an animation film actually. of course i recognize it can be frightened for some people :) but ... well ... as you want .
<tsb> heu oui bon d'accord si bon ok
<sb> yo...@cassoulet.surle.net
<tsb> voilou pi bon hein ya pas kca ici alors
kag...@ecr.net
I've always viewed Picasso's work as cubism and what I see is what
I've expected. Not having first-hand knowledge from Picasso himself,
my opinion is that he painted exactly what he intended. It never
appeared to me that he intended anything close to realism. But then,
you'd say, "what do you know"? Just my opinion and has nothing to do
with whether I like or dislike his work. I respect your opinions and
wouldn't try to change them.
k :))
On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 05:05:01 GMT, hug...@interlog.com (mdeli) wrote:
>On Fri, 24 Apr 1998 10:00:57 -0400, Bob C <bob...@erols.com> wrote:
>
>>Aunty Spam wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> The painting is ugly. Whatever Picasso was trying to accomplish with this
>>> painting, he failed miserably. Maybe that's the ultimate joke: Maybe the Met
>>> really hated Picasso so they bought and hung this one just to show how bad
>>> they thought he was.
>>>
>>
>>I suppose it depends a lot on what expectations we bring to the
>>painting, since I find it to be quite pleasing. Not particularly
>>beautiful, but not ugly at all.
>>
>Right, its just plain stupid.
>
>> Still, the strong modeling forces it to create a
>>definite space, and this space turns out to be in front of the painting
>>rather than behind it.
>
>Seems you just said it was unconventionally flat.
>
>>When I look at this painting there is the feeling of the subject being
>>able to walk off of the surface, as if the image on the surface is
>>really Gertrude Stein herself, stored into 2 dimensions using some sort
>>of compression algorithm.
>
>Artspeak
>
>> This is very, very different from recording
>>the 2 dimensional projection of 3D space as seen from a single
>>viewpoint.
>
>Its totally conventional and as incompetent as any of the worst
>portraits of professors to be seen in the halls of any university. If
>it were signed R. Mutt it wouldn't get further than a Salvation Army
>thrift shop.
>
>> Picasso will do away with this space entirely in his best
>>figurative works,
>
>Not at all. His most popular figures look like blobs of colored
>cement.
>
>> and instead create images which cause one to
>>reconstruct the object within the space of their own consciousness
>>rather than somewhere in the real space in front of them.
>
>more Artspeak.
>
mdeli
From my book, A Skeptical View of Modern Art:
A good example of Picasso's graphic work is the etching
"Minotauromachy." (illustrate) Here Picasso combines many of his
famous subjects: figures, bulls, clunky nudes and even a cubic lump
in the background that looks like flatened Bauhaus architecture of the
period. The print exists in many states showing its progress from
beginning to end.
It is interesting to follow the evolution of this piece as it
illustrates Picasso's working procedure. The picture starts as the
tracings of a series of unrelated outline drawings combined to make up
a scene. The drawing errors look less apparent as the picture is
linear and looks far neater at this stage than the finished result. On
the left side are two figures, a girl holding some flowers and a
candle and farther left is a man on a ladder. The girl is drawn in
proportion in the early state but as the states progressed, Picasso
attempted more detail and the girl got dirtier. In the final result
she is skinnier because Picasso let the outside shading encroach on
the figure. But her head now seems to have grown too large because it
has been left at its original size and the shading has gotten very
dirty. The figure on the ladder was in trouble right from the start
because Picasso probably drew it directly instead of using a
reference. One leg is coming out of nothing and bangs into the picture
border, and the head was misplaced from the beginning. One hand is
also squashed into the corner.
Picasso, unable to correct these errors, leaves them as they are. It
is interesting to see how the states show no improvements and get
progressively dirtier looking. There is no evidence of advance here,
just floundering around. To those who would attribute these errors to
genius rather than a lack of skill one need only point to student
drawings. Critics rarely compare great work to that of students. But
if they paid more attention to student's work, they would soon realize
that either their pet geniuses are not what they are cracked up to be
or students are highly under-rated.
mdeli
On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 11:27:44 -0400, Bob C <bob...@erols.com> wrote:
snip
>From this we conclude that Artspeak is (choose one of the following):
>1. anything mani deli does not understand
>2. any concept more complex than "its a picture of a horsie"
>3. anything using too many multisyllable words
>4. all of the above
The following and more on Artspeak can be found at
http://www.interlog.com/~hugod/
Artspeak is the jargon of the 'in' critics, celebrities, academics,
historians, gallery owners, museum directors and artists. It is a
jargon which is unclear even to those who regularly use it. Critics
refer to it as the 'language of modern art', while constantly
lamenting that almost no one understands it. It is the lingo of
intellectual kitsch.
It is the job of the modern art critic by means of Artspeak to:
-make stupidity seem profound
-make incompetence seem philosophical
-excuse mediocrity by claiming it is something utterly new
The major rules for writing Artspeak are roughly speaking:
--use at least two hundred words where you could have used ten.
---use obscure terms especially when writing esoteric theory.
---when stating your subjective opinion make it sound like it is
universally accepted as unquestionable truth.
---drop names of famous people wherever possible. This advertises that
you are well read.
--humor should sound obscure, even grave. (Later modern Artspeak does
contain a bit of humor.)
---when writing a long statement that means practically nothing, use
your skills to construct it in such a way that it never occurs to
your reader to analyze it.
Bob Cantors comments pretty well conform to most of the above.
>> > and instead create images which cause one to
>> >reconstruct the object within the space of their own consciousness
>> >rather than somewhere in the real space in front of them.
>>
>> more Artspeak.
>
>This clearly demonstrates just how much thought and consideration you've
>put into the nature of human consciousness and its relationship to the
>use of space and visual metaphor in art.
More Artspeak
>In your defense, though, this
>type of knowledge would be completely irrelevant for someone who
>stumbles through life in a state of complete mental unconsciousness, so
>I guess I can see why you consider this type of concept to have no
>value.
He's now switched to psychobabble.
mdeli
I would like to point out why Bob Cantor's criticism amounts to little
more than Artspeak and also introduce you to an artist who could do
portraits and knew how to render the solid with a modern touch.
Most here are already familiar with Tamara de Lempecka's work because
her paintings are starting to be reproduced all over the place. Like
Bouguereau it is the name not the work which is largely unfamiliar.
In my opinion:
Tamara succeeds in portraits which have an aim similar to Picasso's
failures. They are more original, complete, and better drawn, colored
and composed than anything Picasso ever attempted in the portrait
line. While I don't think they rank with the masters, they are fine
competent work which few students or accomplished artists can imitate.
They exhibit the skill and technique which Picasso lacks even though
they are done with similar intentions (creating a portrait in a modern
style while abstracting and simplifying some elements while using a
modern palette). Best of all they are beautiful and never contain
those scratchy areas of flat schmiery ugliness and unfinish so common
in even the best of Picasso.
For those who would like to see what I'm talking about go to Carol
Gersten's sight at: http://familiar.sph.umich.edu/cgfa/
- absolutely the best art sight on the internet.
Also check out the artists you never heard of. It will give you an
idea of how much fine work really exists. Compare it to what is
considered great modern art by the familiar names and decide for
yourself.
Below are some quotes from Cantor's answer to my criticism of
Picasso's G. Stein and why I consider them little more than empty
Artspeak.
>
>
>The composition, based on the classic portrait triangle, is very sound.
>It contains a mixture of strong horizontal, vertical, and diagonal
>movements which pull your eye around the painting but always ends up
>bringing your attention back to the head. The entire surface of the
>painting is activated with interesting textures, lines, and shapes.
All this could be said about Tamara's portraits or most anyone's for
that matter. The statement really pretty well says nothing.
I
>also find the subtle blendings of various ochres, siennas, and browns to
>be very pleasing, although the quiet and understated harmony created by
>these colors is not particularly conducive to the brightly lit and
>attention getting setting of the typical major gallery.
Same here.
>
>But the real interest in the painting is, of course, in the treatment of
>the subject matter.
No shit?
> What immediately grabs ones attention is that most
>of the image is very flat although the head and hands are very strongly
>modeled (not realistically modeled and not modeled with the subtle
>blending of shadows which can so easily create a convincing 3D affect,
The only correct observation.
>When I look at this painting there is the feeling of the subject being
>able to walk off of the surface, as if the image on the surface is
>really Gertrude Stein herself, stored into 2 dimensions using some sort
>of compression algorithm. This is very, very different from recording
>the 2 dimensional projection of 3D space as seen from a single
>viewpoint. Picasso will do away with this space entirely in his best
>figurative works, and instead create images which cause one to
>reconstruct the object within the space of their own consciousness
>rather than somewhere in the real space in front of them.
>
Change the name of Stein to Madam M. and Picasso to Tamara and the
same nonsense can describe Tamara's portraits or most anyone's for
that matter. Its just a long-winded way of saying you like it.
> And so the success of capturing the physical presence
>of Gertrude Stein and the unique way of doing it makes this a very
>powerful painting which is able to transcend its rather ordinary surface
>esthetics.
What success? What is "capturing the physical presence," of anybody.
There is nothing "unique." in the portrait. You can see the same
errors in any better student portrait. And what does "transcend its
rather ordinary surface, esthetics" mean? Nothing I suspect.
All this sort of vacuous babble can be said about any portrait and it
still doesn't really mean a damned thing.
Its just Artspeak. It only sounds like it means something to someone
who doesn't bother to analyze it. I've read forty years of this sort
of drivel in art criticisms of the world's most idiotic paintings and
I feel its time someone points it out.
Jeffery Measamer
mdeli wrote:
>
> --
> Mani DeLi
> ...no skill no art
>
Sorry to disagree for once, while I'm not a fan of Picasso's later work
look at his earlier drawings to see what a skilled draughtsman he was.
Jeff
Bob C
mdeli wrote:
>
> >
> >The composition, based on the classic portrait triangle, is very sound.
> >It contains a mixture of strong horizontal, vertical, and diagonal
> >movements which pull your eye around the painting but always ends up
> >bringing your attention back to the head. The entire surface of the
> >painting is activated with interesting textures, lines, and shapes.
>
> All this could be said about Tamara's portraits or most anyone's for
> that matter.
Not at all. I direct you to http://www.interlog.com/~hugod/Works.htm to
see a large collection of images that do none of the above. These are
all details, of course, so its impossible to know what is happening in
the full picture. But consider just one, "Faces". The strong elements of
this composition consist mainly of a horizontal and vertical arc, with
another shorter arc connecting them. Below the end of the vertical arc
and below and to the left of the shorter arc is a space which is
completely dead. Nothing in the painting moves your eye towards this
space. And even if you do happen to eventually look at it, there is
nothing there of interest nor anything to connect it with the rest of
the painting. The space in the upper left between the 2 arcs is nearly
as dead. The only movement in this image is one which forces your eye to
the right side of the image, then up to the upper right corner, and then
off the image entirely. Even though the face in the upper right is
obviously a strong focal point, it doesn't work as one because your eye
just keeps moving off the painting with no reason to linger on it or
come back to it.
>
> And what does "transcend its
> rather ordinary surface, esthetics" mean? Nothing I suspect.
>
> Its just Artspeak.
>
Transcend - to go beyond the limits of
ordinary - average
surface (no comma after this, btw) - the outer face
esthetic - sensitive to art and beauty, showing good taste
In my original post I stated that the composition was very competent and
the colors, to me, somewhat pleasing. Composition and colors is to a
large extent what I would call "the outer face" of the painting. And
just looking at that outer face and judging it using traditional values
of beauty and taste, I found it to be somewhat average as far as
professional art goes. I then described why I believed that the
treatment of the image made this a very interesting and provocative
painting as well as an excellent portrait. In other words, it allowed
the painting to contain a value which went beyond the limits of the
average beauty found in its outer face, ie. transcend the ordinary
surface esthetic.
doh!
I made no spectacular claims for this painting other than what is
summarized in that explanation above. This, however, was in disagreement
with Mani Deli's opinion that the painting is stupid and ugly. So, like
all good raving opinionated idealogues, Mani saw this as an attack which
needed a counter-attack. This he did by going through my post looking
for anything he could take out of context to try to make look bad (as he
did continually in his previous post), and, where he couldn't, using his
stock repertoire of snide comments and put downs, none of which had
anything to do with anything I wrote. This, in fact, is what Mani has
been doing for the last several years with anyone who disagrees with
him. I guess this is why, deep down, we all like Mani - if nothing else,
he's consistent and can be always be depended upon!
- Bob Cantor
Carole Gray-Weihman
Jeffery Measamer (ArtConn...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net) wrote:
:
I can't find Mani's original post, so I'll reply to Jeff's...
It is purely by choice, not lack of skill that a lot of his drawings weren't
a factual description of life. This is what many refer to as visually
expressing oneself. Just look at the evidence of his earlier work. Either
Picasso told you himself that he was "unable to correct his errors" or you
just wrote a couple of paragraphs to let everyone know that you don't care
for this piece- "Minotauromachy".
When one suggests what an artist is thinking while creating a piece and
makes it known, that's "artspeak". Mani didn't suggest that he knew what
Picasso was thinking, he decided what he was thinking. That's just plain
arrogance. I've always had a dislike for "artspeak", but the nice thing
about is that it's not based on truth or reality. It's purely objective,
another form of expression, and meant to suggest a reality rather than
insist upon a reality. Which is exactly what Mani's doing when he makes
such statements as:"Picasso, unable to correct these errors, leaves them as
they are"?
If anyone wants to have an open discussion on what they think is missing in
Picasso's "Minotauromachy", great. I don't like that piece either.
Have you seen the drawing "Study of a Cast of a Classical Sculpture" that
Picasso did in 1893? He was 12 years old. This piece shows that he had
already acquired precise, realistic drawing skills.
Here are the facts: Picasso followed a pattern with his work. He would
master one style, then quickly replace it with another. He enrolled into
the Barcelona Academy of Fine Arts by the time he was 14. Since he had
already mastered drawing, the Academy allowed him to skip the introductory
courses. He then had to pass an examination for the advanced class. He
started painting and drawing from a live model. Students were given a month
in which to complete this examination to show that they could demonstrate
skill at drawing the human figure. Picasso finished it in one day. By age
16 he had his first studio where he painted subjects that were considered
appropriate and acceptable by the academy. There was a cafe called "Els
Quatre Gats" (The Four Cats) in Barcelona that was a gathering place for the
leading artists, poets and writers during the last several years of the
nineteenth century. These artist were a huge influence on Picasso. They
were painters and poets of the modern age. They wanted art to express the
life around them. They quit taking their subjects from religion and history
and started expressing what they felt and experienced on the streets,
leaving realism behind. Picasso spent a great deal of time at this cafe
drawing portraits of his friends. This was his turning point, because he
realized his passion for art. He gave up the notion that he had to do what
was accepted by society. His art became about showing compassion for the
poor and suggesting that society must change to make their lives better. At
18 years of age, many artists are still confined or limited, struggling to
do realistic renderings. He no longer needed to prove to himself or anybody
that he could draw. He just wanted to convey a visual impression of the
world. He was quoted as saying that factual descriptions were dull and
repetitious to him.
-carole
car...@sonic.net
In article <3544dfc2...@news.interlog.com>#1/1,
hug...@interlog.com (mdeli) wrote:
>
> I would like to point out why Bob Cantor's criticism amounts to little
> more than Artspeak
snip
> > And so the success of capturing the physical presence
> >of Gertrude Stein and the unique way of doing it makes this a very
> >powerful painting which is able to transcend its rather ordinary surface
> >esthetics.
>
> What success? What is "capturing the physical presence," of anybody.
> There is nothing "unique." in the portrait. You can see the same
> errors in any better student portrait. And what does "transcend its
> rather ordinary surface, esthetics" mean? Nothing I suspect.
> All this sort of vacuous babble can be said about any portrait and it
> still doesn't really mean a damned thing.
>
Bob will correct me if I'm wrong, I hope. But I got a lot out of what he
said, be it "artspeak" or not. I believe I got a genuine sense of why he
thinks this painting of Picasso's is worthy. What I get out of his statement,
"transcend its rather ordinary surface aesthetics", is that Picasso's rather
crude way of painting this portrait using very simple shapes and still being
able to capture Gertrude Stein's presense is something that not many artists
are capable of doing. One has to be incredibly in touch with their subject
matter and extremely skilled at capturing a likeness of the model with the
simplest lines or shapes to pull it off. And this is how I feel Picasso
succeeded.
> Its just Artspeak. It only sounds like it means something to someone
> who doesn't bother to analyze it. I've read forty years of this sort
> of drivel in art criticisms of the world's most idiotic paintings and
> I feel its time someone points it out.
> --
> Mani DeLi
> ...no skill no art
Why would anyone bother to read drivel for forty years?
-carole
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
car...@sonic.net
In article <3544dfc2...@news.interlog.com>#1/1,
hug...@interlog.com (mdeli) wrote:
>
> I would like to point out why Bob Cantor's criticism amounts to little
> portraits and knew how to render the solid with a modern touch.
>
> Most here are already familiar with Tamara de Lempecka's work because
> her paintings are starting to be reproduced all over the place. Like
> Bouguereau it is the name not the work which is largely unfamiliar.
>
> In my opinion:
> Tamara succeeds in portraits which have an aim similar to Picasso's
> failures. They are more original, complete, and better drawn, colored
> and composed than anything Picasso ever attempted in the portrait
> line. While I don't think they rank with the masters, they are fine
> competent work which few students or accomplished artists can imitate.
> They exhibit the skill and technique which Picasso lacks even though
> they are done with similar intentions (creating a portrait in a modern
> style while abstracting and simplifying some elements while using a
> modern palette). Best of all they are beautiful and never contain
> those scratchy areas of flat schmiery ugliness and unfinish so common
> in even the best of Picasso.
>
When you state that Tamara de Lempicka's portraits have a similiar aim to
Picasso's failures, how do you know what Picasso's aim was? If he was trying
to produce paintings that he knew would be accepted without taking bold risks,
I doubt he would have had any trouble producing predictable work such as
Tamara de Lempicka's.
Not to say that I don't care for her work. I find it very aesthetically
pleasing. Even more so than Picasso's. But for me to compare the two of them
is a difficult task because I don't consider that they were striving for the
same outcome. One artist is completely different from the other. Here's my
assumption; Not based on fact, but theory.
I think Tamara de Lempicka's aim or focus was more on producing art that she
knew would be accepted. She became very skilled at drawing and compositon.
And I'll note that I think her compositonal skills are pretty extraordinary.
Nonetheless, to me her work is predictable and safe. It seems like she found
something that worked and stuck with it.
For example: she paints hair the same way in almost all the paintings I've
seen. If it's straight hair, it's painted to resemble the plastic hair that
clicks onto my old leggo toy people. If it's curly hair, it resembles copper
or gold sheeting that's been coiled around a cylinder. The lips and eyes
always seem to be the same basic shape. Generally the eyes are either
dramatic due to being in the shade either by a head tilting downward or a
hat, or they're closed slightly, all they way, or are dramatically lit. I
believe that these are just a few tricks that painters use to create a
dramatic effect. And if her aim was to show us that she could draw, create a
dramatic effect, and please society with a nice compostion and not offend
anyone with odd subject matter like clunky bulls humping females. Than I
think she succeeded. Which reminds me, I wish her surrealist work was more
popular so that I could see more of it. Her surrealist work is the only place
where I felt that she stepped outside of her box. If you know of any, please
let me know.
I still like Tamara de Lempicka's work, but it doesn't knock my socks off.
Helen Fleischer
I've only recently joined this news group and I've found what I've seen of
this exchange to be fascinating and entertaining. On one side we have the
classic iconoclast playing the role of the boy on the street in the fable,
Emperor's New Clothes, or in this case The Emperor's New Art, which is a
term I tend to apply to a 6" bit of rope screwed to the wall, rather than
Picasso. On the other side we seem to have the voice of the sycophants and
tailors, almost. Then in the middle, the natural born mediators. "Artspeak"
draws out a fascinating slice of human nature, indeed! I've been kept too
busy chuckling and thinking to jump in until this caught my eye:
On Wed, 29 Apr 1998 22:30:09 -0600, car...@sonic.net wrote:
>Bob will correct me if I'm wrong, I hope. But I got a lot out of what he
>said, be it "artspeak" or not. I believe I got a genuine sense of why he
>thinks this painting of Picasso's is worthy. What I get out of his statement,
>"transcend its rather ordinary surface aesthetics", is that Picasso's rather
>crude way of painting this portrait using very simple shapes and still being
>able to capture Gertrude Stein's presense is something that not many artists
>are capable of doing. One has to be incredibly in touch with their subject
>matter and extremely skilled at capturing a likeness of the model with the
>simplest lines or shapes to pull it off. And this is how I feel Picasso
>succeeded.
>
Interesting. That sounds very much like a definition of success at
caricature. I have not seen this portrait of Gertrude Stein, but to me the
descriptions sound more and more like caricature. Then again, my MIL just
sent me a clipping of an article about an exhibition of caricature and some
of the more elaborate ones struck me as being more like portraits. Makes a
body wonder if it's all that easy to place a dividing line on a continuum
of caricature---portrait. The relative amount of respect, or lack of it,
that practitioners of each tend to garner is also a source of wonder.
Okay, at the end of this you will see my usual sig. which gives a web site.
If you decide to have a look, you'll see the work of a largely untrained,
novice, outsider artist, whose main influences are visits to museums and
science fiction conventions. I don't apologize for my peculiar view of the
world, but any tips on technique or professional development are welcomed.
Thank you for reading this far.
he...@min.net http://www.min.net/~helen
Helen "Halla" Fleischer,
Fantasy and Fiber Artist in Fairland,MD,USA
Bob C
car...@sonic.net wrote:
>
>
> When you state that Tamara de Lempicka's portraits have a similiar aim to
>
> Not to say that I don't care for her work. I find it very aesthetically
> pleasing. Even more so than Picasso's. But for me to compare the two of them
> is a difficult task because I don't consider that they were striving for the
>
After viewing de Lempicka's work on the mentioned web site (and one
other), my own feeling is that it differs from Picasso's early
figurative works in at least 3 significant ways which, as you put it,
make the works completely different.
First, if you focus on the people and objects in de Lempicka's work,
they have very little life and character. What life and character they
do have comes from the entire composition itself. The lines, the colors,
the selection of images and their positioning all work togethor to
create a mood which is then projected on the otherwise lifeless images.
Picasso's use of composition to this effect was much more subtle and
secondary to the life contained within the image itself. I'm not saying
that either one is better than the other, but they are very different.
Second, da Lempicka does not create space, but rather gives us a little
and then destroys it. A detail viewed in isolation may seem very three
dimensional, but when the entire painting is viewed, the ambiguities and
flat areas work against each other to destroy any notion that there is a
space defined by the painting. I don't mean to say that this is a fault;
on the contrary, the act of giving us some space and then taking it away
adds a great deal of life to the painting. I also think it serves to
strengthen those characteristics of the paintings described in the
previous and in the next paragraph. This is very different from Picasso,
whose paintings almost always create a very definite space for me, with
the few exceptions being the ones which had no space in them to begin
with.
>
> Nonetheless, to me her work is predictable and safe. It seems like she found
> something that worked and stuck with it.
>
> For example: she paints hair the same way in almost all the paintings I've
> seen. ...
And this would be my third point, and that is the extent to which de
Lempicka uses and repeats stylizations which invoke safe, standard
metaphors. This is used quite skillfully to guarantee the beauty and
impact of the graphic appeal of these works, but it takes something away
from their ability to really grab me and provoke serious thought and
emotion.
> I still like Tamara de Lempicka's work, but it doesn't knock my socks off.
That pretty much sums it up for me also, although I'll add a disclaimer
that my knowledge of her work is limited to what I've seen on the net.
-Bob C.
car...@sonic.net
In article <6i3dsm$e...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>#1/1,
> > Mani DeLi
> > ...no skill no art
In my previous post to this thread, I went off on a tangent explaining
Picasso's history in efforts to prove that he was a skilled draftsman. I do
realize that the fact that Picasso was accepted as an advanced draftsman at
the Barcelona Academy doesn't justify that his work is of quality. But for
the sake of argument, how does one pull off skilled drawing ability in such a
prestigious art academy if one doesn't posess it? And if one posessed
accurate drawing skills, how could those skills be lost to the point of
drawing crude, inaccurate and rather ugly looking drawings unless that is what
the artist intended?
There isn't much of Picasso's work that is within my realm of taste and a lot
of it I find just plain slapped together and ugly. But I appreciate his
obsession with creation and his ability to create anything from practically
nothing, regardless of what "anything" looks like. I think that's where many
people see his genius.
car...@sonic.net
In article <35f97232....@news.min.net>#1/1,
Well, maybe a very crude caricature. In fact, If I remember correctly, he may
have viewed Gertrude Stein as a very crude person. It's a pretty ugly
painting, nonetheless, I think it looked like her.
N
> Philip why don't you ask mdeli why she is so fascinated with this
> painting. =
And she is not alone.
The painting was a milestone for portraiture in Western art. One would be
hard pressed to find a portrait painting in Western art that preceded
Picasso's Gertrude Stein that exhibited such an advanced development and
integration of abstract form and space...one would have to look way back
into the most elite traditions of Chinese portraiture (made by the most
advanced and gifted artists of their day...for the Emperors) to find hints
of portraiture formally and abstractly as advanced as Picasso's 1906
Gertrude Stein.
> Mdeli constantly examines it, talks about it, tries to engage in debates
> about it. What she may not know is that it took 80 sittings, that
> Picasso and Gertrude had a very interesting relationship, that
> this is Picasso's interpretation of Gertrude Stein. =
> Picasso from beyond the grave continues to annoy mdeli.
> The painting is successful then, because the man loved to
> irritate and annoy people.
...and the man (Picasso, not Mdeli) was a tremendously gifted and
innovative painter, synthesizing the best efforts of many art traditions
(including the cannon of Western art) towards innovating and advancing the
art of painting in the West (his lifetime contribution to the art of
PORTRAITURE ALONE is astounding).
The difficulty here, as elsewhere in art, is that in advanced cultures, a
classic distinction between high art and low art is evident. Even for one
to adequately and competantly dismiss this distinction demands a very high
level of understanding, education, experience, and familiarity with
tradition. Ignorance here destines one for the experience of low art only,
and any approach to high art will be limited to SIMPLISTIC parody, satire,
or the limits of low art forms (i.e., Mdeli and her ilk) [and of course,
these distinctions, high and low, are culturally generated, i.e., at the
periods of the highest cultural achievement and aesthetic refinement in a
long and rigourous art tradition in China, sculpture was NOT considered a
high art form...appreciation of the most advanced and accomplished
examples of ink painting, for example, was availible only to the educated
classes, the elite artists, monks, scholars, and royalty...its develpemnts
would have been wasted on, and little understood by the peasantry].
Similiarly, appreciation and production of high art in our culture demands
an experience/education in the tradition...not an easy thing to aquire by
any means, and not rewarded by small efforts. Picasso had the aptitude,
talent, and drive to penetrate deeply and attain much...the community of
artistic culture that strives to understand this accomplishment is
comminucated by the specialized professional language of artists and
scholars of many colors: historians, critics, etc. Artspeak, if such a
moniker is applied, is simply this language and tradition of elite
cultural scholarship. That many do not posses an aptitude, talent, and
drive for acquiring the most difficult and advanced cultural traditions,
or even more difficult, extending and contributing to them, is not the
fault of the traditions but rather an expression of the range of human
abilities (which in themselves are not simply a function of age, title, or
proximity). For example, something as innocuous as abstract painting will
demand a lifetime of study and even then one can only expect to make
limited inroads towards scratching the surface of the practice and/or
making a contribution to its development. To reduce the readings and
experience of elite traditions of art to the lowest common denominator,
something of the order of a layman's scan of the images in a newspaper (a
stock photo of a politician, a salon styled portrait, a cartoon) is more
an expression of the limited background and abilities of the viewer than
it is the accomplishments of the art in question...necessarily abstact art
is no more than a 'blob' or a 'schmier' from this vantage point, and all
'blobs and schmiers' belong to the same order of experience, as do the
minds from which they are generated and issued.
Of course, the problem is disconcertingly large and the efforts and
abilities demanded to address them, even more so...this dilemma is
particularly pronounced when the object of contemplation and exegesis is
of the order of high art: the uneveness of experience and aptitude become
apparent.
Liking Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein is one thing: being in a
position to appreciate how and why such a painting can even come to be in
the first place, is something else...just as extending and building upon
Picasso's achievements is again something else entirely...
In these enterprises ignorance is best seen for what it is, a severe and
debilitating liability.
-N
--
N
To reach me, remove _xxx from my address.
N
Aidan Campbell
If so many people today admire Picasso as a master, why doesn't anybody
paint like him anymore? Cubism is as dead as the dodo, isn't it?
--
Aidan Campbell
car...@sonic.net
In article <KObCCAA7...@zola.demon.co.uk>#1/1,
Masters never die; Movements do. Cubism was just a silly name that was
applied to a modern art movement by a critic. It was the basis of many other
movements that came after. Artists took its fractured visual language and
made it a departure point for further exploration in modern art.
mdeli
>> Mani DeLi
>> ...no skill no art
>>
>Sorry to disagree for once, while I'm not a fan of Picasso's later work
>look at his earlier drawings to see what a skilled draughtsman he was.
>Jeff
>
well name a few
--
Mani DeLi
...no skill no art
Check out my webpage to see some of my work and a Skeptical View of Modern Art at: http://www.interlog.com/~hugod
car...@sonic.net
(Snipped from "illustration" thread - 1998/05/02)
In article <3546804d...@news.interlog.com>, hug...@interlog.com
>(mdeli) wrote:
>I like all kinds of subjects. I judge works in terms of skill, ideas
>and technique.
Skill, ideas and technique? What about form or context? I'm assuming you're
referring to "content" when you say 'ideas". I think "context" is crucial
with assessing works for the soul purpose of not misunderstanding what the
artist's intentions are. When one critiques a work an artist has produced,
without taking into account what the artist's intentions are, any argument
made about the work is not a logically valid argument. An argument that's
missing documentary evidence doesn't hold up. How would one expect to be
taken seriously?
Therefore, if ones interpretations are not supplied with objective
observations, how is it any different than stating what ones taste is? That's
all it amounts to, either one likes the work of art or doesn't like the work
of art. Am I right?
> On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 11:27:44 -0400, Bob C <bob...@erols.com> wrote:
> snip
> >From this we conclude that Artspeak is (choose one of the following):
> >1. anything mani deli does not understand
> >2. any concept more complex than "its a picture of a horsie"
> >3. anything using too many multisyllable words
> >4. all of the above
Hahaha.
In article <3543be29...@news.interlog.com>#1/1,
hug...@interlog.com (mdeli) wrote:
> The following and more on Artspeak can be found at
> http://www.interlog.com/~hugod/
>
> Artspeak is the jargon of the 'in' critics, celebrities, academics,
> historians, gallery owners, museum directors and artists. It is a
> jargon which is unclear even to those who regularly use it. Critics
> refer to it as the 'language of modern art', while constantly
> lamenting that almost no one understands it. It is the lingo of
> intellectual kitsch.
"Art speak" is full of buzz words that can be difficult to understand.
Discussions can become embellished with poetics and pseudo psychological or
philosophical remarks and turns "art speak" into "artsy speak". "Art speak"
is useful if it's used the way it is intended, a language guide of ideas and
movements and words used to describe contemporary art. There are a lot of
people out there caught up in embellishing the language of "art speak", but it
doesn't mean "art speak" per se, isn't useful. It just means a lot of people
are turning it into something fashionable and trendy.
> It is the job of the modern art critic by means of Artspeak to:
>
> -make stupidity seem profound
> -make incompetence seem philosophical
> -excuse mediocrity by claiming it is something utterly new
What is stupidity?
What is incompetence?
What is mediocrity?
> The major rules for writing Artspeak are roughly speaking:
>
> --use at least two hundred words where you could have used ten.
> ---use obscure terms especially when writing esoteric theory.
> ---when stating your subjective opinion make it sound like it is
> universally accepted as unquestionable truth.
> ---drop names of famous people wherever possible. This advertises that
> you are well read.
> --humor should sound obscure, even grave. (Later modern Artspeak does
> contain a bit of humor.)
> ---when writing a long statement that means practically nothing, use
> your skills to construct it in such a way that it never occurs to
> your reader to analyze it.
>
> Bob Cantors comments pretty well conform to most of the above.
Which comments?
(BobC)
> >> > and instead create images which cause one to
> >> >reconstruct the object within the space of their own consciousness
> >> >rather than somewhere in the real space in front of them.
(Mdeli)
> >> more Artspeak.
Is this your example of "art speak"? I don't know what article you snipped
this from, so I can't form an accurate opinion based on half of a sentence. I
don't see anything obscure about this sentence fragment. I believe I
understand what it means, but I haven't a clue what context it's been taken
out of. I'm curious now as to where it came from.
(BobC)
> >This clearly demonstrates just how much thought and consideration you've
> >put into the nature of human consciousness and its relationship to the
> >use of space and visual metaphor in art.
(Mdeli)
> More Artspeak
"Art speak" refers to art. Bob's comment refers to you.
(BOBC)
> >In your defense, though, this
> >type of knowledge would be completely irrelevant for someone who
> >stumbles through life in a state of complete mental unconsciousness, so
> >I guess I can see why you consider this type of concept to have no
> >value.
(Mdeli)
> He's now switched to psychobabble.
I get the impression he doesn't like you.
mdeli
On Wed, 29 Apr 1998 22:05:06 -0600, car...@sonic.net wrote:
>
>When you state that Tamara de Lempicka's portraits have a similiar aim to
>Picasso's failures, how do you know what Picasso's aim was?
It was to paint a portrait.
> If he was trying
>to produce paintings that he knew would be accepted without taking bold risks,
>I doubt he would have had any trouble producing predictable work such as
>Tamara de Lempicka's.
Tamara's work doesn't look like it hung among the portraits of
university luminaries. Here you can usually find triangular
compositions with subjects that look like potato sacks with goo-goo
eyes and mud flaps for hair. All of Picasso's portraits are
conventional (predictable as you say) his worst and his best. None
bare any semblance to great art of any style of this or any other
century. Their only redeeming quality for some people is that they are
signed Picasso. If they turned out to be fakes they wouldn't be worth
toilet paper.
>Not to say that I don't care for her work. I find it very aesthetically
>pleasing. Even more so than Picasso's. But for me to compare the two of them
>is a difficult task because I don't consider that they were striving for the
>same outcome.
You just compared them in the only worthwhile way.
> One artist is completely different from the other.
One can draw the other can't. One is ugly the other is pleasing. For
blow-bags like Cantor that's easy to get around by a bit of artspeak.
> Here's my
>assumption; Not based on fact, but theory.
>
>I think Tamara de Lempicka's aim or focus was more on producing art that she
>knew would be accepted. She became very skilled at drawing and compositon.
Well we don't want to count that as an asset in this age of advanced
art-theory, do we?
>And I'll note that I think her compositonal skills are pretty extraordinary.
Gee, not according to Cantor who draws lines all over paintings and
then tells you about the lines rather than the painting. Now according
to Ayres you might think this because you actually like Newt Gingrich.
>Nonetheless, to me her work is predictable and safe. It seems like she found
>something that worked and stuck with it.
Gee, who would want that. Picasso perhaps. He repeated himself
ad-nauseum with that stupid doubleface and schmiery goo-goo eyes etc.
( a mark of genius as Marilyn calls it.)
>
>For example: she paints hair the same way in almost all the paintings I've
>seen. If it's straight hair, it's painted to resemble the plastic hair that
>clicks onto my old leggo toy people. If it's curly hair, it resembles copper
>or gold sheeting that's been coiled around a cylinder. The lips and eyes
>always seem to be the same basic shape. Generally the eyes are either
>dramatic due to being in the shade either by a head tilting downward or a
>hat, or they're closed slightly, all they way, or are dramatically lit. I
>believe that these are just a few tricks that painters use to create a
>dramatic effect.
Dramatic effect, we don't want that in Modern Academic Art do we?
> And if her aim was to show us that she could draw, create a
>dramatic effect, and please society with a nice compostion and not offend
>anyone
Right on. Offending people is in, especially by presenting overt
incompetence.
> with odd subject matter like clunky bulls humping females.
Drawn with all the skill an competence of a high class "clunky" public
bathroom scrawls.
> Than I
>think she succeeded. Which reminds me, I wish her surrealist work was more
>popular so that I could see more of it.
Its rather dull because Tamara is not a great artist.
> Her surrealist work is the only place
>where I felt that she stepped outside of her box.
Its Tanguay without the skill.
>I still like Tamara de Lempicka's work, but it doesn't knock my socks off.
And what effect does Picasso have on your socks?
mdeli
On Thu, 30 Apr 1998 13:26:09 -0600, car...@sonic.net wrote:
>In my previous post to this thread, I went off on a tangent explaining
>Picasso's history in efforts to prove that he was a skilled draftsman.
It proves nothing.
Picasso's early drawings are nothing special. That stupid foot and
torso that every modern art critic brings up as proof of Picasso's
advanced abilities is something every student did around that time;
some much better some worse. Critics are very careful never to show
modern Art buffs anything of that nature. They dismiss it as academic
in words but never show it.
Picasso's earliest paintings of any complexity are conventional
academic stuff, full of errors. Only his early portraits are any good.
But none are great art or anything more than conventional.
Picasso is considered a great draftsman because he knew how to draw
better than most any other great modern academic artists; most of
whom hadn't enough technique to copy a large Picassoid goo-goo eye.
>There isn't much of Picasso's work that is within my realm of taste and a lot
>of it I find just plain slapped together and ugly.
Even his more beautiful work is slapped together.
> But I appreciate his
>obsession with creation and his ability to create anything from practically
>nothing, regardless of what "anything" looks like.
I believe its because you have been told to.
> I think that's where many
>people see his genius.
Correct. That's also how most people saw the Emperor's new clothes.
mdeli
On Thu, 30 Apr 1998 13:36:25 -0600, car...@sonic.net wrote:
>Well, maybe a very crude caricature.
What an anti post-modern thought.
> In fact, If I remember correctly, he may
>have viewed Gertrude Stein as a very crude person. It's a pretty ugly
>painting, nonetheless, I think it looked like her.
So does any tenth grade characture of Hitler. So what?
mdeli
>summarized in that explanation above. This, however, was in disagreement
>with Mani Deli's opinion that the painting is stupid and ugly.
Not to mention the fact that I indicated that the draftsmanship, color
and detail are abominable: that the image and composition are
entirely conventional.
> So, like
>all good raving opinionated idealogues,
namely those who disagree with your academic everyday opinions and
point out you meaningless Artspeak,,,
> Mani saw this as an attack which
>needed a counter-attack.
_ Instead of agreeing with Cantor.
>This he did by going through my post looking
>for anything he could take out of context to try to make look bad (as he
>did continually in his previous post), and, where he couldn't, using his
>stock repertoire of snide comments and put downs, none of which had
>anything to do with anything I wrote.
Indeed.
> This, in fact, is what Mani has
>been doing for the last several years with anyone who disagrees with
>him. I guess this is why, deep down, we all like Mani - if nothing else,
Well otherwise you'd be talking to yourself.
>he's consistent and can be always be depended upon!
True.
mdeli
On Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:12:03 -0400, Bob C <bob...@erols.com> wrote:
>First, if you focus on the people and objects in de Lempicka's work,
>they have very little life and character.
Picasso's Potato sack Goo-goo eyed Gertrude Stein is of course
brimming "with life" ( whatever that is)
> What life and character they
>do have comes from the entire composition itself. The lines, the colors,
>the selection of images and their positioning all work togethor to
>create a mood which is then projected on the otherwise lifeless images.
What's a lifeless image?
>Picasso's use of composition to this effect was much more subtle and
>secondary to the life contained within the image itself. I'm not saying
>that either one is better than the other, but they are very different.
Picasso did, as you said a triangle. Well big deal.
>Second, da Lempicka does not create space,
To your jaded flatfooted eye.
>but rather gives us a little
>and then destroys it.
And Picasso never gives space because he doesn't know how?
> A detail viewed in isolation may seem very three
>dimensional, but when the entire painting is viewed, the ambiguities and
>flat areas work against each other to destroy any notion that there is a
>space defined by the painting.
All paintings are physically flat and if sucessful "seem three
dimentional."
> This is very different from Picasso,
>whose paintings almost always create a very definite space for me, with
>the few exceptions being the ones which had no space in them to begin
>with.
>
Like Guernica, his portraits. all his later stuff etc.
>And this would be my third point, and that is the extent to which de
>Lempicka uses and repeats stylizations which invoke safe, standard
>metaphors.
Picasso is little more then " repeats and stylizations which invoke
safe, standard metaphors. " That is why his work is such an ugly bore.
>This is used quite skillfully to guarantee the beauty and
>impact of the graphic appeal of these works, but it takes something away
>from their ability to really grab me and provoke serious thought and
>emotion.
Name one of your "serious thoughts" (Artspeak)
>> I still like Tamara de Lempicka's work, but it doesn't knock my socks off.
>
>That pretty much sums it up for me also, although I'll add a disclaimer
>that my knowledge of her work is limited to what I've seen on the net.
Well get with it.
mdeli
On 30 Apr 1998 23:51:02 GMT, joe...@aztec.asu.edu (JOEL KAPLAN)
wrote:
>
>Did Picasso ever take LSD?
>
>It might have improved his art.
Picasso didn't take LSD. Even if he had, it wouldn't have helped.
Picasso's only aids where photographs, opaque projectors and comic
books. Even these didn't help much.
Had Picasso really wished to improve he would have enrolled in the
Famous Artist's Course. But I doubt that they would have accepted him
on the basis of his drawing.
Anyway why should he have borthered? He was rich beyond believe and
also stingy beyond belief. He would have never shelled out the money.
mdeli
On 29 Apr 1998 11:23:45 -0700, car...@sonic.net (Carole Gray-Weihman)
wrote:
>I can't find Mani's original post, so I'll reply to Jeff's...
>
>It is purely by choice, not lack of skill that a lot of his drawings weren't
>a factual description of life. This is what many refer to as visually
>expressing oneself. Just look at the evidence of his earlier work. Either
>Picasso told you himself that he was "unable to correct his errors" or you
>just wrote a couple of paragraphs to let everyone know that you don't care
>for this piece- "Minotauromachy".
In other words if some fifth rate artist produces a drawing full of
errors I shouldn't really come to realise this unless he told me so.
Good reasoning.
I think the work is a peice of crap because it is full of errors and
whatever excuse the artist or his critics offer won't cover up the
errors.
> Mani didn't suggest that he knew what
>Picasso was thinking, he decided what he was thinking.
I decided no such thing. I don't give a shit what the artist was
thinking. What counts is the artwork.
> I've always had a dislike for "artspeak", but the nice thing
>about is that it's not based on truth or reality.
That's just wonderful.
> It's purely objective,
Its mostly pure incomprehensible baloney
>another form of expression, and meant to suggest a reality rather than
>insist upon a reality. Which is exactly what Mani's doing when he makes
>such statements as:"Picasso, unable to correct these errors, leaves them as
>they are"?
?
>If anyone wants to have an open discussion on what they think is missing in
>Picasso's "Minotauromachy", great. I don't like that piece either.
Shocking confession.
>Have you seen the drawing "Study of a Cast of a Classical Sculpture" that
>Picasso did in 1893? He was 12 years old. This piece shows that he had
>already acquired precise, realistic drawing skills.
>
--of a 16 year old. Unfortunatly it never got better than that. Well
it is pretty advanced comapared to Matisse, who never made it past
about 10.
>Here are the facts: Picasso followed a pattern with his work.
and who doesn't?
> He would
>master one style, then quickly replace it with another. He enrolled into
>the Barcelona Academy of Fine Arts by the time he was 14. Since he had
>already mastered drawing.
He never mastered drawing.
> He just wanted to convey a visual impression of the
>world.
Who doesn't?
> He was quoted as saying that factual descriptions were dull and
>repetitious to him.
So What?
--
Mani DeLi
...no skill no art
Check out my webpage to see some of my work and a Skeptical View of Modern Art at: http://www.interlog.com/~hugod
Bob C
mdeli wrote:
>
> All paintings are physically flat and if sucessful "seem three
> dimentional."
>
Perhaps you could explain why a painting must seem three dimensional in
order to be successful.
Was Ducio or Cimabue successful? What about most of the history of art
from China, India, or the Moslem world? Were Byzantine mosaics
successful? The illuminations of the middle ages? Any art which came
prior to the ancient Greeks?
What kind of artspeak can you use to claim that any of these created a
convincing illusion of 3d space or do you really not consider any of
this to be successful art?
- Bob C.
Bob C
car...@sonic.net wrote:
>
> (BobC)
> > >> > and instead create images which cause one to
> > >> >reconstruct the object within the space of their own consciousness
> > >> >rather than somewhere in the real space in front of them.
>
> (Mdeli)
> > >> more Artspeak.
>
> Is this your example of "art speak"? I don't know what article you snipped
> this from, so I can't form an accurate opinion based on half of a sentence. I
> don't see anything obscure about this sentence fragment. I believe I
> understand what it means, but I haven't a clue what context it's been taken
> out of. I'm curious now as to where it came from.
>
I was describing that one of the things which made Picasso's portrait of
G. Stein interesting was the way it created space. The traditional
Western way of creating space is in a painting which makes you feel as
if you are looking through a window into an imaginary world. Thus, the
space exists directly behind the surface of the painting. When I look at
the Stein portrait, I instead see a space which is being pushed out of
the surface and being created in front of the painting. In many ways,
this makes it seem more real and more a part of my world. It is also
interesting just in how it varies from what we expect to see in
representational art.
To go the next step, imagine in your mind some person or place. Would
you say that you are seeing a 3D space just as real as the space you
imagine when you look at a painting? Maybe not as detailed or visually
accurate, but probably just as real. Where does that 3D space exist? It
exists in your consciousness. Paintings can create a space in your
consciousness just as strongly as they can create one which relates
directly to the surface of the painting (in fact, I believe that most
cultures in most times have been far more concerned with this
consciousness space than with the surface one, and that would explain
why the creation of the illusion of 3D space is the exception rather
than the rule when looking at the entire history of world art).
To continue with this line of thought, I think there are 2 basic ways to
create this consciousness space. First, symbols and visual metaphors
trigger these images (and other thoughts) without any effort on our
part. In fact, we can't prevent it even if we want to; certain images
have certain connotations that we can't help but see. A second,
different way is when you look at the image in the painting and
construct a series of thoughts and mindspaces as part of consciously
considering the image.
Traditional western art can do both of these very well, but usually
focus on the second method (if it tries at all), while the first one is
done much more subtly and more as a secondary consideration. Exceptions
which come immediately to mind are El Greco and Modigliani - both of
them created wonderful imaginary worlds behind the plane of the
painting, but at the same time created images that reach directly into
the mind to create thoughts and objects in our consciousness.
BTW - See Julian Jaynes "Origins of consciousness in the breakdown of
the bicameral mind" for a much more complete description of the nature
of consciousness and the way it resembles an actual space, and also for
some very provocative ideas about what he thinks it about this
triggering thing I was talking about (he believes that ancient art was
built to trigger auditory hallucinations, much in the way that
schizophrenics hear voices).
- Bob C.
Marilyn
Never seen paintings done in India, in the round?
Marilyn
Marilyn
car...@sonic.net wrote:
about mdeli's use of the words: artspeak & psychobabble.
mdeli means "jargon" and there is a jargon for every profession.
New jargon for artists: "pomo."
Why not? why be so resentful about the use of jargon among a group
of people who also use and understand the jargon?? Why so bitter Mani?
Marilyn
Marilyn
Bob C wrote:
" BTW - See Julian Jaynes "Origins of consciousness in the breakdown of
> the bicameral mind" for a much more complete description of the nature
> of consciousness and the way it resembles an actual space, and also for
> some very provocative ideas about what he thinks it about this
> triggering thing I was talking about (he believes that ancient art was
> built to trigger auditory hallucinations, much in the way that
> schizophrenics hear voices)."
JJ was speaking of a time when the shaman/artist/priest were one person.
Although western art has evolved and art has become a profession,
there still remains the transformative power of art. Ideally the
painting we view has such magic infused in it from the artist that
it has the power to transform us.
I think this area is too deep for
Mani,
down deep he is very shallow.
Marilyn
car...@sonic.net
In article <354d4395...@news.interlog.com>#1/1,
hug...@interlog.com (mdeli) wrote:
> >On Wed, 29 Apr 1998 22:05:06 -0600, car...@sonic.net wrote:
> >
> >When you state that Tamara de Lempicka's portraits have a similiar aim to
> >Picasso's failures, how do you know what Picasso's aim was?
> It was to paint a portrait.
Portrait = image of a person.
Image = representation of an object.
Then he succeeded with flying colors. No pun intended.
> > If he was trying to produce paintings that he knew would be accepted
> > without taking bold risks,
> > I doubt he would have had any trouble producing predictable work such as
> > Tamara de Lempicka's.
> Tamara's work doesn't look like it hung among the portraits of
> university luminaries. Here you can usually find triangular
> compositions with subjects that look like potato sacks with goo-goo
> eyes and mud flaps for hair. All of Picasso's portraits are
> conventional (predictable as you say) his worst and his best. None
> bare any semblance to great art of any style of this or any other
> century. Their only redeeming quality for some people is that they are
> signed Picasso. If they turned out to be fakes they wouldn't be worth
> toilet paper.
Picasso's work, IMHO is the least predictable work I've ever seen an artist
produce. He had several styles and used many media to produce his portraits.
Compare these with each other... ....or don't.
Picasso's blue period self portrait, 1901.
Portrait of Manuel Hugue,1904.
Portrait of Paulo as a Harlequin in 1924.
Portrait of his mother in 1923
Portrait of Paulo as a Pierrot, 1921
I could go on...
If you've seen Tamara do more than paint the same looking people with the same
color pallette over and over again, than give me specific reference.
Otherwise, your argument is not valid here.
No, I don't want to do the reference myself.
> > Not to say that I don't care for her work. I find it very aesthetically
> > pleasing. Even more so than Picasso's. But for me to compare the two of
> > them is a difficult task because I don't consider that they were striving
> > for the same outcome.
> You just compared them in the only worthwhile way.
Tamara probably looked better in her underwear than Picasso did.
> > One artist is completely different from the other.
> One can draw the other can't. One is ugly the other is pleasing. For
> blow-bags like Cantor that's easy to get around by a bit of artspeak.
One that can draw is capable of painting an ugly painting. One that cannot
draw is capable of painting a pleasing painting.
> > Here's my assumption; Not based on fact, but theory.
> > I think Tamara de Lempicka's aim or focus was more on producing art that
> > she knew would be accepted. She became very skilled at drawing and
> > compositon.
> Well we don't want to count that as an asset in this age of advanced
> art-theory, do we?
I think that trying to produce art that is accepting is not an asset, but a
limitation. Just as I think it's limiting to just have the aim of painting a
portrait. There is much more to painting than skill at drawing and
composition.
> >And I'll note that I think her compositonal skills are pretty
> >extraordinary.
> Gee, not according to Cantor who draws lines all over paintings and
> then tells you about the lines rather than the painting. Now according
> to Ayres you might think this because you actually like Newt Gingrich.
No comment.
> > Nonetheless, to me her work is predictable and safe. It seems like she
> > found something that worked and stuck with it.
> Gee, who would want that. Picasso perhaps. He repeated himself
> ad-nauseum with that stupid doubleface and schmiery goo-goo eyes etc.
> ( a mark of genius as Marilyn calls it.)
The day I start to become predictable and safe is the day I give up painting.
> >For example: she paints hair the same way in almost all the paintings I've
> >seen. If it's straight hair, it's painted to resemble the plastic hair
> >that clicks onto my old leggo toy people. If it's curly hair, it resembles
> >copper or gold sheeting that's been coiled around a cylinder. The lips and
> >eyes always seem to be the same basic shape. Generally the eyes are either
> >dramatic due to being in the shade either by a head tilting downward or a
> >hat, or they're closed slightly, all they way, or are dramatically lit. I
> >believe that these are just a few tricks that painters use to create a
> >dramatic effect.
> Dramatic effect, we don't want that in Modern Academic Art do we?
Dramatic effect is great, but to adapt to a particular style to create a
dramatic effect makes a predictable artist with limited skills.
> >And if her aim was to show us that she could draw, create a
> >dramatic effect, and please society with a nice compostion and not offend
> >anyone
> Right on. Offending people is in, especially by presenting overt
> incompetence.
Artist's who don't want to offend, paint "safe", like Tamara. It has nothing
to do with what's "in" or not. Or, at least my comment doesn't.
> > with odd subject matter like clunky bulls humping females.
> Drawn with all the skill an competence of a high class "clunky" public
> bathroom scrawls.
But it *would* make great toilet paper.
> >Than I
> >think she succeeded. Which reminds me, I wish her surrealist work was more
> >popular so that I could see more of it.
> >Its rather dull because Tamara is not a great artist.
Which paintings are you referring to as being dull?
> >Her surrealist work is the only place
> >where I felt that she stepped outside of her box.
> Its Tanguay without the skill.
Whatever.
> >I still like Tamara de Lempicka's work, but it doesn't knock my socks off.
> And what effect does Picasso have on your socks?
He knocks my socks off for sure. Especially those pictures of him in his
boxers and slippers. Oooh baby!
-carole
car...@sonic.net
In article <354d4367...@news.interlog.com>#1/1,
hug...@interlog.com (mdeli) wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Apr 1998 13:36:25 -0600, car...@sonic.net wrote:
> >Well, maybe a very crude caricature.
> What an anti post-modern thought.
Makes me kind of "unpredicatable" doesn't it?
And it didn't even hurt my brain.
> >In fact, If I remember correctly, he may
> >have viewed Gertrude Stein as a very crude person. It's a pretty ugly
> >painting, nonetheless, I think it looked like her.
> So does any tenth grade characture of Hitler. So what?
Yeah, but could any tenth grader draw him naked?
car...@sonic.net
In article <354d4297...@news.interlog.com>#1/1,
hug...@interlog.com (mdeli) wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Apr 1998 13:26:09 -0600, car...@sonic.net wrote:
>
> >In my previous post to this thread, I went off on a tangent explaining
> >Picasso's history in efforts to prove that he was a skilled draftsman.
> It proves nothing.
You cut the part out where I mentioned that it isn't proof.
> Picasso is considered a great draftsman because he knew how to draw
Oops, did I chop your paragraph? Oh well. Let me respond to your first
sentence. I agree with you.
Okay, I apologize. I couldn't resist. :)
> >There isn't much of Picasso's work that is within my realm of taste and a
> >lot of it I find just plain slapped together and ugly.
> Even his more beautiful work is slapped together.
Oh my God! Mani said the word beautiful! I could kiss you...
Well, maybe not.
> >But I appreciate his
> >obsession with creation and his ability to create anything from practically
> >nothing, regardless of what "anything" looks like.
> I believe its because you have been told to.
Actually, nobody told me to appreciate Picasso. I managed that one all by
myself. I have a pretty good idea of what it takes to make art practically
every day of your life. It's impressive. That alone, is enough to have me
appreciate Picasso.
If I paint 15 days straight, my brain hurts.
> >I think that's where many people see his genius.
> Correct. That's also how most people saw the Emperor's new clothes.
The Emperor looked much cuter in his underwear.
car...@sonic.net
In article <354d410c...@news.interlog.com>#1/1,
hug...@interlog.com (mdeli) wrote:
> On 29 Apr 1998 11:23:45 -0700, car...@sonic.net (Carole Gray-Weihman)
> wrote:
> >I can't find Mani's original post, so I'll reply to Jeff's...
> >It is purely by choice, not lack of skill that a lot of his drawings
> >weren't
> >a factual description of life. This is what many refer to as visually
> >expressing oneself. Just look at the evidence of his earlier work. Either
> >Picasso told you himself that he was "unable to correct his errors" or you
> >just wrote a couple of paragraphs to let everyone know that you don't care
> >for this piece- "Minotauromachy".
> In other words if some fifth rate artist produces a drawing full of
> errors I shouldn't really come to realise this unless he told me so.
It depends on what this so called "fifth rate" artist's aim is. An art critic
that judges paintings without knowing the context of the work cannot make a
valid judgement of that work.
> Good reasoning.
Thank you.
> I think the work is a peice of crap because it is full of errors and
> whatever excuse the artist or his critics offer won't cover up the
> errors.
They are only errors if the artist failed. How do you know what a failure is
unless you know what the projected outcome is?
> > Mani didn't suggest that he knew what
> >Picasso was thinking, he decided what he was thinking.
> I decided no such thing. I don't give a shit what the artist was
> thinking. What counts is the artwork.
My point exactly. :)
You DO NOT give a shit what the artist's thinking. Therefore, you do not know
what the artist's aim was.
> > I've always had a dislike for "artspeak", but the nice thing
> >about is that it's not based on truth or reality.
> That's just wonderful.
I agree. I can take it or leave it.
> > It's purely objective,
> Its mostly pure incomprehensible baloney
> >another form of expression, and meant to suggest a reality rather than
> >insist upon a reality. Which is exactly what Mani's doing when he makes
> >such statements as:"Picasso, unable to correct these errors, leaves them as
> >they are"?
> ?
?
Where is the rest of what I wrote? Forget it, I'm not going back into the
thread to get it. If I remember correctly, it's about how you don't give a
shit what Picasso was thinking, so you made up what his aim was. Which was to
paint a portrait. (Which he succeeded in doing), but that he also failed
because he couldn't correct the errors (which you can't really determine what
they are) since you could care less what his aim was.
> >If anyone wants to have an open discussion on what they think is missing in
> >Picasso's "Minotauromachy", great. I don't like that piece either.
> Shocking confession.
Will you put the word "beautiful' in another sentence again?
> >Have you seen the drawing "Study of a Cast of a Classical Sculpture" that
> >Picasso did in 1893? He was 12 years old. This piece shows that he had
> >already acquired precise, realistic drawing skills.
> --of a 16 year old. Unfortunatly it never got better than that. Well
> it is pretty advanced comapared to Matisse, who never made it past
> about 10.
I saw an etching today that Matisse did in his earlier years that exhibited a
lot more skill than I'm used to seeing of Matisse. I don't recall the name of
the etching, but in all honesty it did surprise me. I haven't invested much
time looking at his work. And I haven't seen many of his drawings.
> >Here are the facts: Picasso followed a pattern with his work.
> and who doesn't?
No point intended. That sentence was a prelude to the rest of the paragraph
which is all cut up below.
> >He would
> >master one style, then quickly replace it with another. He enrolled into
> >the Barcelona Academy of Fine Arts by the time he was 14. Since he had
> >already mastered drawing.
> He never mastered drawing.
Why do you cut out sentence fragments out of my copy and stick periods behind
them?
> >He just wanted to convey a visual impression of the
> >world.
> Who doesn't?
Do you get something out of repetitive rhetorical questions?
> > He was quoted as saying that factual descriptions were dull and
> >repetitious to him.
> So What?
Why life?
Helen Fleischer
Some things snipped out of context from this discussion that give me pause:
>It depends on what this so called "fifth rate" artist's aim is. An art critic
>that judges paintings without knowing the context of the work cannot make a
>valid judgement of that work.
>They are only errors if the artist failed. How do you know what a failure is
>unless you know what the projected outcome is?
>You DO NOT give a shit what the artist's thinking. Therefore, you do not know
>what the artist's aim was.
These statements bring up a question that has been eating at me for a
while. It comes to the fore with shows like that 60 Minutes piece on
conceptual art, but also during a guided tour of SFMOMA. It is simply this:
If one must be told what was in the artist's mind when creating a piece of
art in order to appreciate or judge it as a piece of art, can it really be
successful art?
In other words, if the piece requires lengthy interpretation to be able to
reach out and touch the intellect or emotions of the beholder, is it really
art? To me a picture may be worth a thousand words, but it shouldn't need a
thousand words of explanation to be able to communicate. On a gut level
that just doesn't seem right. One type of art is used to illustrate words,
but it seems to me there is a lot of stuff in museums these days that
demands words to illustrate it.
As someone driven to create images, I find this question particularly
disturbing. Just this past weekend I entered a small competition (entry fee
was a whole dollar, imagine!) at the MD. Sheep and Wool Festival. This year
was its 25th anniversary and in honor of that they had a special category
in the fine art competition: "What MD Sheep & Wool Means to Me." Well you
can see I don't move in the more rarified heights of art, but something
happened there to bring up this same issue.
When I entered, they asked if I'd attached a paragraph of explanation to
the piece. Even though that option was not mentioned in the fair booklet,
several of the artists had done that and they handed me a tiny scrap of
paper to do the same. With my handwriting, I can't fit much into a space 1"
high and barely 2.5 inches wide, so I didn't write much.
I couldn't write much. I had put my meaning into the picture to the extent
of my abilities. When I came to view the show, I found I was the only one
who had done that. The others had taken their standard portraits of sheep,
some nearly identical to what they were entering in the regular categories,
and wedged them into the anniversary category with separately matted
paragraphs of explanation. I felt like I'd unwittingly entered an essay
contest, not an art show. It was the typical student nightmare of
unpreparedness come true. In the circumstances, I'm not unhappy to have
taken 3rd place in that competition, but it sure raised some questions in
my mind. Anyone here have an answer or an opinion?
he...@min.net http://www.min.net/~helen
Helen "Halla" Fleischer,
Fantasy and Fiber Artist in Fairland,MD,USA
Philip Ayers
: > > mdeli wrote:
: > > >
: > > > All paintings are physically flat and if sucessful "seem three
: > > > dimentional."
Actually, I doubt mdeli would understand the difference. What a
simplistic statement.
& if a painting does have the "illusion" of the 3rd dimension, is it then
successful?...or is it that some bad painting also have this illusion too?
You also might say more illusion is better mr. mdeli? Sorta,..uh..
Spielbergian, no?
The truth be told, I've rarely seen a picture without the illusion of
space! If it were so easy to make a flat picture short of just one color
-the ground and *no* figure- it wouldn't have been such a big deal to make
all those supposed flat new york school jobs of the 40s and 50s. Greenburg
may have been a lot of things but studid wasn't one of them.
Of course it was more the intent and the effect of the space that mattered.
Philip (never Phil) Ayers
http://www.mindspring.com/~p.ayers/
p.a...@mindspring.com.
Bob C
Helen Fleischer wrote:
>
>
> >They are only errors if the artist failed. How do you know what a failure is
> >unless you know what the projected outcome is?
>
> >You DO NOT give a shit what the artist's thinking. Therefore, you do not know
> >what the artist's aim was.
>
> These statements bring up a question that has been eating at me for a
> while. It comes to the fore with shows like that 60 Minutes piece on
> conceptual art, but also during a guided tour of SFMOMA. It is simply this:
> If one must be told what was in the artist's mind when creating a piece of
> art in order to appreciate or judge it as a piece of art, can it really be
> successful art?
There's 2 separate replies I'd like to make to this. The first is how it
relates to the Picasso work we were talking about and the second is the
more general question about conceptual art.
1. Picasso
As far as Picasso goes, nobody was talking about his paintings requiring
an explanation to be appreciated. What is required, however, is that one
understand the visual vocabulary he is using. If you don't understand
the language, you can't expect to appreciate the message, nor can you
make any reasonable judgement about how well the artist is using the
language.
If you listen to Jazz at all, I think an analogy makes it quite clear
(and if I don't get this quite right, feel free to correct me, because I
know even less about music than I do about art). Traditional jazz makes
heavy use of melodic improvision, which most people find quite pleasing
the very first time they hear it and it becomes what we expect to hear
in jazz. Then along comes BeBop with its harmonic improvisions and a lot
of people on first hearing it say "what the hell is that?"
Some people may like it right off. But it took me quite a while of
listening to music that progressively increased in its deviations from
the traditional before I began to realize just how beautiful different
types of modern jazz could be.
Some people will just never like it; most of my friends accuse me of
listening to stuff that sounds like bands warming up. Now, if these
friends call the musicians I'm listening to idiots because they're doing
the worst melodic improvision they ever heard, there criticism is
entirely without value. They may be right, but their reasoning is simply
irrelevant and therefore worthless.
A critic might try to explain to you what the artist was trying to do
and why the work is successful, but the critic enjoyed the work before
coming up with the explanation. In this case, the explanations are for
those who don't understand the language the artist is learning but who
would like to learn it. Once you learn that language, the work needs no
explanation.
2. Conceptual Art
I'm no great fan of conceptual art, but I realize that the distinction
between the different types of arts grows fuzzier and fuzzier all the
time. Conceptual art is a fusion of the object itself and the
explanation behind it. One does not pretend to exist without the other.
And just as you can't appreciate a poem by just looking at or just
reading only every other line, you can't expect to appreciate the
conceptual work by just looking at the half of the work which is the
object.
Or look at it this way: my goal in viewing art is to get as much out of
it as possible. If an explanation of the work lets me get more out of
it, then what's the problem?
So why don't I particularly like conceptual art? I don't know. Maybe the
same reason I don't particularly like poetry. I'm very visually oriented
and very much moved by works which talk to me in purely visual terms. I
think this is the most powerful language available to us. Possibly, many
conceptual artists today are just looking for a language which is easier
to learn and quicker to get results from, but since I don't much like
the medium anyway, it doesn't make much sense for me to be the one to
try to sort them out.
- Bob Cantor
Marilyn
mdeli wrote:
>
> On 30 Apr 1998 23:51:02 GMT, joe...@aztec.asu.edu (JOEL KAPLAN)
> wrote:
>
> >
> >Did Picasso ever take LSD?
> >
> >It might have improved his art.
>
> Picasso didn't take LSD. Even if he had, it wouldn't have helped.
>
> Picasso's only aids where photographs, opaque projectors and comic
> books. Even these didn't help much.
Yeah, what about all his models, some of whom became more than models?
What about his relationships with other artists, like Braque?
These are aids, technical or otherwise.
And I will not visit your web page until you start taking
art history courses, and contemporary art theory courses!
Marilyn
car...@sonic.net
In article <354DCB...@erols.com>#1/1,
bob...@erols.com wrote:
> I was describing that one of the things which made Picasso's portrait of
> G. Stein interesting was the way it created space. The traditional
> Western way of creating space is in a painting which makes you feel as
> if you are looking through a window into an imaginary world. Thus, the
> space exists directly behind the surface of the painting. When I look at
> the Stein portrait, I instead see a space which is being pushed out of
> the surface and being created in front of the painting. In many ways,
> this makes it seem more real and more a part of my world. It is also
> interesting just in how it varies from what we expect to see in
> representational art.
>
> To go the next step, imagine in your mind some person or place. Would
> you say that you are seeing a 3D space just as real as the space you
> imagine when you look at a painting? Maybe not as detailed or visually
> accurate, but probably just as real. Where does that 3D space exist? It
> exists in your consciousness. Paintings can create a space in your
> consciousness just as strongly as they can create one which relates
> directly to the surface of the painting (in fact, I believe that most
> cultures in most times have been far more concerned with this
> consciousness space than with the surface one, and that would explain
> why the creation of the illusion of 3D space is the exception rather
> than the rule when looking at the entire history of world art).
Interesting point. Flat perspective didn't become accepted until much later
in the history of art. The creation of illusion, as you put it, definitely
doesn't give the appearance of reality, but rather suggests it. Creating a
factual description was what the earlier painters strived for. They would
have been outcasts had they created works any other way.
This discussion reminds me of something I read once upon a time. It's from
the book "The Creative Vision: A Longitudinal Study of Problem Finding in Art"
by Jacob Getzels and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (yes, that's his name). A
section of this book refers to the social and cultural contexts of art. A
paragraph describes a "particular malaise" of a handful of new struggling
artists. They feel that their work is "not reflecting progress adequately."
"The artist's efforts to communicate his vision are frustrated by the lack of
an expressive vocabulary of any universality or permanence. And it is not
possible to have a generally accepted vocabulary for meanings as long as their
is no agreement on what is meaningful, and why."
"To solve this problem we would have to agree on a set of priorities, values
and beliefs, and create a symbolic reality that was meaningful to all."
Easily said, not done, eh?
> To continue with this line of thought, I think there are 2 basic ways to
> create this consciousness space. First, symbols and visual metaphors
> trigger these images (and other thoughts) without any effort on our
> part. In fact, we can't prevent it even if we want to; certain images
> have certain connotations that we can't help but see. A second,
> different way is when you look at the image in the painting and
> construct a series of thoughts and mindspaces as part of consciously
> considering the image.
Yes, and Picasso was very much into symbols. Although, I believe that in
postexpressionist art that symbols and "visual metaphors" are more forced,
where as a couple of centuries ago, they were pretty straight forward. Just
think of all the historical periods that artists represented using
"universally shared symbols". I bet life must have been easier for artist's
back in those days. Today, modern artists are understood by few people, for a
short time. Just because we can't all agree upon a "symbolic language" in our
culture.
> Traditional western art can do both of these very well, but usually
> focus on the second method (if it tries at all), while the first one is
> done much more subtly and more as a secondary consideration. Exceptions
> which come immediately to mind are El Greco and Modigliani - both of
> them created wonderful imaginary worlds behind the plane of the
> painting, but at the same time created images that reach directly into
> the mind to create thoughts and objects in our consciousness.
>
> BTW - See Julian Jaynes "Origins of consciousness in the breakdown of
> the bicameral mind" for a much more complete description of the nature
> of consciousness and the way it resembles an actual space, and also for
> some very provocative ideas about what he thinks it about this
> triggering thing I was talking about (he believes that ancient art was
> built to trigger auditory hallucinations, much in the way that
> schizophrenics hear voices).
That's an interesting idea he has. Sparks my curiosity.
> - Bob C.
-Carole
car...@sonic.net
> I was describing that one of the things which made Picasso's portrait of
> G. Stein interesting was the way it created space. The traditional
> Western way of creating space is in a painting which makes you feel as
> if you are looking through a window into an imaginary world. Thus, the
> space exists directly behind the surface of the painting. When I look at
> the Stein portrait, I instead see a space which is being pushed out of
> the surface and being created in front of the painting. In many ways,
> this makes it seem more real and more a part of my world. It is also
> interesting just in how it varies from what we expect to see in
> representational art.
Picasso used flat perspective for the background and three dimentions for the
foreground. It gives me the sense that she's going to get up and walk out
of the painting. (Maybe she's tired of sitting there posing.) But, I agree
with you here.
-carole
> To go the next step, imagine in your mind some person or place. Would
> you say that you are seeing a 3D space just as real as the space you
> imagine when you look at a painting? Maybe not as detailed or visually
> accurate, but probably just as real. Where does that 3D space exist? It
> exists in your consciousness. Paintings can create a space in your
> consciousness just as strongly as they can create one which relates
> directly to the surface of the painting (in fact, I believe that most
> cultures in most times have been far more concerned with this
> consciousness space than with the surface one, and that would explain
> why the creation of the illusion of 3D space is the exception rather
> than the rule when looking at the entire history of world art).
>
> To continue with this line of thought, I think there are 2 basic ways to
> create this consciousness space. First, symbols and visual metaphors
> trigger these images (and other thoughts) without any effort on our
> part. In fact, we can't prevent it even if we want to; certain images
> have certain connotations that we can't help but see. A second,
> different way is when you look at the image in the painting and
> construct a series of thoughts and mindspaces as part of consciously
> considering the image.
>
> Traditional western art can do both of these very well, but usually
> focus on the second method (if it tries at all), while the first one is
> done much more subtly and more as a secondary consideration. Exceptions
> which come immediately to mind are El Greco and Modigliani - both of
> them created wonderful imaginary worlds behind the plane of the
> painting, but at the same time created images that reach directly into
> the mind to create thoughts and objects in our consciousness.
>
> BTW - See Julian Jaynes "Origins of consciousness in the breakdown of
> the bicameral mind" for a much more complete description of the nature
> of consciousness and the way it resembles an actual space, and also for
> some very provocative ideas about what he thinks it about this
> triggering thing I was talking about (he believes that ancient art was
> built to trigger auditory hallucinations, much in the way that
> schizophrenics hear voices).
>
> - Bob C.
Bob C
car...@sonic.net wrote:
>>
>> My comments on Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein clipped...
>
>
> Picasso used flat perspective for the background and three dimentions for the
> foreground. It gives me the sense that she's going to get up and walk out
> of the painting. (Maybe she's tired of sitting there posing.) But, I agree
> with you here.
>
I think I said almost the exact same thing way back in my first post on
that painting! Just used different words. And no "tired of sitting"
concept ;)
It's been a long time since I've seen the original and I was just using
a copy on the web to refresh my memory. At this point, I'm not really
sure whether my feeling was one of the image walking off the painting or
the existence of the image within a perceived space in front of the
painting. Maybe both. Maybe you can't have one without the other. In any
case, although I may not be doing a good job of describing the
difference between these two, I do feel as if they are very distinctly
different feelings.
- Bob Cantor
mdeli
On Tue, 05 May 1998 17:22:34 -0400, Bob C <bob...@erols.com> wrote:
>1. Picasso
>As far as Picasso goes, nobody was talking about his paintings requiring
>an explanation to be appreciated. What is required, however, is that one
>understand the visual vocabulary he is using.
You are contradicting yourself.
> If you don't understand
>the language, you can't expect to appreciate the message, nor can you
>make any reasonable judgement about how well the artist is using the
>language.
This is the sort of baloney which artzy-fartzies use defend
incompetent Modern Academic Art which is usually little more than a
put-on.
They claim that there is a language of modern art and those who don't
like some modern art don't understand it. However one can appreciate
Baroque or Renaissance art with resorting to the necessity of any
language or even an understanding of the period because it relies on
skill and craftsmanship for its appreciation rather than a bunch of
excuses
>
>A critic might try to explain to you what the artist was trying to do
>and why the work is successful,
...or unsuccessful. You seem to forget that.
>.. but the critic enjoyed the work before
>coming up with the explanation. In this case, the explanations are for
>those who don't understand the language the artist is learning but who
>would like to learn it. Once you learn that language, the work needs no
>explanation.
I presume you know some sort of language that would justify Picasso's
lousy draftsmanship in most of his drawing. Do tell us about it.
>Or look at it this way: my goal in viewing art is to get as much out of
>it as possible. If an explanation of the work lets me get more out of
>it, then what's the problem?
The problem is that no explanation necessarily justifies incompetent
craftsmanship or a glaring lack of skill.
Or as I say, "If it needs a long sermon to proclaim its art its
probably bullshit."
>large snip
>So why don't I particularly like conceptual art? I don't know.
Its because even your tolerance for a put-on has its limits.
mdeli
On Sun, 03 May 1998 19:39:37 -0600, car...@sonic.net wrote:
>Skill, ideas and technique? What about form or context? I'm assuming you're
>referring to "content" when you say 'ideas". I think "context" is crucial
>with assessing works for the soul purpose of not misunderstanding what the
>artist's intentions are. When one critiques a work an artist has produced,
Now take one of your favorite paintings and tell us what the artists
intentions were.
>When one critiques a work an artist has produced,
>without taking into account what the artist's intentions are, any argument
>made about the work is not a logically valid argument. An argument that's
>missing documentary evidence doesn't hold up. How would one expect to be
>taken seriously?
I can go to a show of assorted artist and know when I'm looking at
crap without knowing a damned thing about the artist and so can you
.
>
>(BobC)
>> >This clearly demonstrates just how much thought and consideration you've
>> >put into the nature of human consciousness and its relationship to the
>> >use of space and visual metaphor in art.
>
>(Mdeli)
>> More Artspeak
>
>"Art speak" refers to art. Bob's comment refers to you.
Quite correct. I should have said bullshit.
mdeli
>
>: > > mdeli wrote:
>: > > >
>: > > > All paintings are physically flat and if sucessful "seem three
>: > > > dimentional."
>
>Actually, I doubt mdeli would understand the difference. What a
>simplistic statement.
>& if a painting does have the "illusion" of the 3rd dimension, is it then
>successful?.
I said "if successful."
>..or is it that some bad painting also have this illusion too?
Yes, many details in Picasso's paintings are a good example.
>You also might say more illusion is better mr. mdeli? Sorta,..uh..
>Spielbergian, no?
?
>The truth be told, I've rarely seen a picture without the illusion of
>space!
Try Guernica and then Mondrian for starters and graduate to Abstract
Expressionism. Perhaps you smoke to much pot.
> If it were so easy to make a flat picture short of just one color
>-the ground and *no* figure- it wouldn't have been such a big deal to make
>all those supposed flat new york school jobs of the 40s and 50s.
Its no big deal.
Look at all the stuff done by all those Abstractionist failures
graduated from art schools every year. Its no less crappy than any
Blue-Chip-Modern trash that gets hung in museums.
>Greenburg
>may have been a lot of things but studid wasn't one of them.
He was stupid enough to get me a scholarship to Europe on the basis of
one of my big FLAT schmier paintings (in which someone like you would
see depth). I believe that Greenberg is one of the primal morons of
Modern Academic Art. He was a total phoney.
>Of course it was more the intent and the effect of the space that mattered.
What's that supposed to mean?
car...@sonic.net
In article <355716e7...@news.min.net>,
he...@min.net wrote:
>
> Some things snipped out of context from this discussion that give me pause:
>
> >It depends on what this so called "fifth rate" artist's aim is. An art
critic
> >that judges paintings without knowing the context of the work cannot make a
> >valid judgement of that work.
>
is
> >unless you know what the projected outcome is?
>
> >You DO NOT give a shit what the artist's thinking. Therefore, you do not
know
> >what the artist's aim was.
>
> These statements bring up a question that has been eating at me for a
> while. It comes to the fore with shows like that 60 Minutes piece on
> conceptual art, but also during a guided tour of SFMOMA. It is simply this:
> If one must be told what was in the artist's mind when creating a piece of
> art in order to appreciate or judge it as a piece of art, can it really be
> successful art?
>
Art should speak for itself. I agree with you. It shouldn't need ANY
explanation. But, that is not what my argument is in this thread. My
argument is that for one to HONESTLY critique a piece of art, he/she must
UNDERSTAND the context of the work or else there is no validity to what the
art critic is saying, regardless of wether the critic likes the work or not.
With criticism, one cannot embellish the language of art speak with artsy
poetics or philosophizing to ANY degree and expect by doing so that it's now a
worthy piece of art. Art speak was intended to be used as a guide for
understanding movements and ideas not to manipulate us into accepting "bad"
art as "good" art or "good" art as "bad" art.
What you're inquiring into in your post might have been best brought up as a
separate subject of discussion. But I will give you my honest opinion if you
bare with me while I reiterate my viewpoints, since they seem to have been
getting lost in this thread.
We are not living in the age of Classicism. We cannot critique works the way
we did in the eighteenth century. We are living in a society where we do not
work within a system of beliefs sanctioned by our culture. We are allowed to
be subjective and independent. That is why we need art speak. We are living
in a society of "change", and art speak helps us to keep in touch with the
changes we have made in art. If one wants to call the poetic, philosophical
ramblings of an "art critic", "art speak", then that person does not know the
context of the word.
The argument in this thread is about Picasso. Could he draw accurately? Was
he a worthy artist? And then there's an attempt to make a comparison between
Picasso and Tamara di Lempicka in another thread. What Picasso strived for in
his work is IMHO the opposite of what Tamara strived for in her work. I am
not an art critic, I'm an artist. I've had more exposure to Picasso's words
and art than I have of Tamara's. What I've written about Tamara, as well as
anything else, in my previous posts is based on my own observations, as an
artist. But what I do know is, Picasso wasn't trying to paint a pretty
picture. He wanted his work to look crude. Tamara's portraits are not crude
in the least. How can one honestly compare the two when their intentions were
obviously different?
So, about your disappointment, Helen. Wether you write some words about your
art or not, shouldn't make much difference, unless it's not obvious to the
viewer what your intended outcome was (the context of the work). I think the
art really should speak for itself. If one was to write a lengthy description
of it, maybe they felt they had to, so that the work wouldn't be judged out of
context.
-carole
Helen Fleischer
Thank you for a very interesting response, Carole. I think you're right,
the questions I raised probably should have been given another title and
separated from the original thread, but I liked what you had to say on the
original thread as well. Context does make some difference in understanding
what an artist is attempting to communicate, and that is the role of the
interpeter critic, to place the image in its proper context.
Still I do see some art where in theory people like myself are the target
audience and still it does not speak to or touch me in any way. If the only
meaning comes from this verbal interpretation, to me that's a failure to
include the meaning in the art. From what you say I think we may agree.
In my experience with Science Fiction and Fantasy art, this failure to
speak may even happen in images with superb draftsmanship. In some museum
examples, minimalism goes to such an extreme as to be nearly blank. To me
that's also uncommunicative. The whole message of such art seems to be,
"how little can I get away with saying or doing and still sell this stuff
for big bucks?" It is the game of seeing how much I can cheat and still
shock and therefore please those who want to be shocked by my cheating.
It's a fun game but it seems to be wearing thin even with its proponents.
Some art would seem to have only the artist himself as a narcissistic
audience and to me that really hovers on the fringes of what is art. It is
as if the artist failed to expose his soul to anyone but himself and in
some cases not even to himself. Yes, my choice of pronouns may be sexist,
here. I seem to be hovering around the idea that men fail at this sort of
communication more often than women do, and that's pure predjudice on my
part. I have no proof either way.
In the example I raise of my recent experience, I think the effort to
wedge something into a special category at the last minute by adding a
paragraph of "explanation" was in fact a kind of cheat. The oil paintings
were done and dated before they could have known the theme existed. Nice
paintings though they were, they did not and could not communicate the
specifically requested message without those added paragraphs. To me that
little cheat, that added burden diminished them in my eyes, but I'm biased.
Well that's enough rambling for one morning, I guess. I'm not even sure
where I ended up after all that! Must be time for some food. ;)
car...@sonic.net
In article <3550f014...@news.interlog.com>,
hug...@interlog.com (mdeli) wrote:
>
> On Sun, 03 May 1998 19:39:37 -0600, car...@sonic.net wrote:
>
> >Skill, ideas and technique? What about form or context? I'm assuming
you're
> >referring to "content" when you say 'ideas". I think "context" is crucial
> >with assessing works for the soul purpose of not misunderstanding what the
> >artist's intentions are.
>
> intentions were.
I will accept this invitation and introduce to you a painting done by my dear
friend Camille Przewodek. I don't think her best paintings are the ones on
the web, but I'll pick one from a 'url' so that you may view it if you care
to. And if time allows, I could pick some other paintings by other artists I
admire/don't admire that have very different intentions and that I don't have
a personal relationship with.
I'm about to travel abroad and I'll be away from the internet for quite some
time, so I won't make any promises.
What Camille intends to achieve in her paintings is close to, if not identical
to what the intentions were of Henry Hensche, Charles Hawthorne, Hans Hoffman,
Jauquin Sorella and Monet. Don't misunderstand me here. It's not her
intention to imitate a style of any of these artists.
To explain: she is not interested in imitating anothers work, nor
were the other artist's I mentioned. Because they understood, as few other
artists do, that a style that one artist adopted by searching to solve a
problem is not a style when another artist imitates it. In other words,
when an artist imitates another artist their intentions are not the same as
the artist that's being imitated. Their intentions become about having their
work take on the style of the artist their imitating. There's nothing
wrong with it; It's just what it is.
Simply put, what Camille intends to paint is an honest painting; A convincing
symbol of nature. When her individual idiosyncrasy creeps in resulting from
the valiant attempt to tell the truth, that's what produces a failed attempt
to paint an honest painting. She has paintings where I feel she has
succeeded, and others where she failed. More often than not, her works are,
IMHO successes. Keep in mind, she is my best friend and it's difficult for me
to give totally non biased criticism. But then, I never claimed to be a
critic.
Her aim is to make large masses of color so true that they tell the
fundamental fact of the objects in front of her; Simply by means of color
quality. In this painting.. 'http://www.sonic.net/~fineart' I feel that she
has achieved that.
> >When one critiques a work an artist has produced,
> >without taking into account what the artist's intentions are, any argument
> >made about the work is not a logically valid argument. An argument that's
> >missing documentary evidence doesn't hold up. How would one expect to be
> >taken seriously?
>
> I can go to a show of assorted artist and know when I'm looking at
> crap without knowing a damned thing about the artist and so can you.
No, I can't. But, I can go to a show of assorted artists and *think* I'm
looking at crap without knowing a damned thing about the artist.
-carole
Email me if you're interested in signing up for her Southampton, NY workshop.
'car...@sonic.net'
mdeli
On Thu, 07 May 1998 20:08:21 GMT, car...@sonic.net wrote:
>Art should speak for itself. I agree with you.
What you say in the following contradicts this.
> It shouldn't need ANY
>explanation. But, that is not what my argument is in this thread. My
>argument is that for one to HONESTLY critique a piece of art, he/she must
>UNDERSTAND the context of the work or else there is no validity to what the
>art critic is saying,
What context? Is quality a context?
>... regardless of wether the critic likes the work or not.
>With criticism, one cannot embellish the language of art speak with artsy
>poetics or philosophizing to ANY degree and expect by doing so that it's now a
>worthy piece of art. Art speak was intended to be used as a guide for
>understanding movements and ideas not to manipulate us into accepting "bad"
>art as "good" art or "good" art as "bad" art.
Criticism of art infers value. Value in art is primarily a matter of
quality (technique skill craft ideas etc.)
>snip
>We are not living in the age of Classicism. We cannot critique works the way
>we did in the eighteenth century.
All artwork can be compared on the basis of quality regardless of it
origin.
> If one wants to call the poetic, philosophical
>ramblings of an "art critic", "art speak", then that person does not know the
>context of the word.
If an art critic or anyone wants to make a point and no one can even
agree as to what he is talking about. I can only conclude that he has
written nonsense. Most Artspeak is pure nonsense.
>The argument in this thread is about Picasso. Could he draw accurately?
That is not the argument. Tamara doesn't draw more "accuratly" than
Picasso. The question is could Picasso express the forms he attempted
with skill craft and technique in a way worthy of being considered
great art. Most great art goes far beyond accuracy. A fine cartoonist
of illustrator does not draw forms with realistic accuracy.
If a piece of artwork looks like something a student or a third rate
illustrator could easily do you can call it what you will, but I
don't consider it great art.
> Was
>he a worthy artist? And then there's an attempt to make a comparison between
>Picasso and Tamara di Lempicka in another thread. What Picasso strived for in
>his work is IMHO the opposite of what Tamara strived for in her work.
]
I said they both wanted to do a portrait.
Well that doesn't satisfy you. So tell us what Picasso was STRIVING
for that was so different from any other portrait? I bet you can't
> But what I do know is, Picasso wasn't trying to paint a pretty
>picture. He wanted his work to look crude.
It does indeed looks crude. So does most lousy artwork. I might add
that it also looks crappy. Was Picasso STRIVING for this context? If
so does it make the picture any better? Is that why it is considered
great art?
I believe most of Picasso's work looks intentionally crappy. Mainly
because he couldn't do any better. Warhol was more honest. he infered
that his work was all a put-on. Does the fact that he achieved this
goal make it great art?
> Tamara's portraits are not crude
>in the least. How can one honestly compare the two when their intentions were
>obviously different?
YOU JUST COMPARED THEM.
Now you can go one step further and ask whether you prefer crappy
crude to not crappy crude and compare further.
Matthew C. Mossbarger
In article <6ioo43$u9i$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
car...@sonic.net wrote:
>Interesting point. Flat perspective didn't become accepted until much later
>in the history of art. The creation of illusion, as you put it, definitely
>doesn't give the appearance of reality, but rather suggests it. Creating a
>factual description was what the earlier painters strived for. They would
>have been outcasts had they created works any other way.
>
Actually, if you have seen painting before the Renaissance, you would see that all paintings for
the most part was dimensionally lacking and very flat. It wasn't until Raphael and later de Vinci
decided that the oils could bring out something into almost lifelike proportion and dimension.
Almost all of that art was religiously based, and can still be seen in the Vatican. But this does
not mean that it was "bad art"...does it?
N
Hi Helen,
In article <3566286f...@news.min.net>, you wrote:
> Thank you for a very interesting response, Carole. I think you're right,
> the questions I raised probably should have been given another title and
> separated from the original thread, but I liked what you had to say on the
> original thread as well. Context does make some difference in understanding
> what an artist is attempting to communicate, and that is the role of the
> interpeter critic, to place the image in its proper context.
Isn't there always a context. Isn't art always prefaced?
<snip>
> In some museum
> examples, minimalism goes to such an extreme as to be nearly blank. To me
> that's also uncommunicative.
Some would find that less can be more.
>The whole message of such art seems to be,
> "how little can I get away with saying or doing and still sell this stuff
> for big bucks?"
That is a very cynical reaction.
> It is the game of seeing how much I can cheat and still
> shock and therefore please those who want to be shocked by my cheating.
> It's a fun game but it seems to be wearing thin even with its proponents.
...Not only cynical but unsubstantiated. I'm curious...who would you
suggest are the proponents of 'this game' of minimalism, which is wearing
thin? This is a time to be very concrete...a list of artists would qualify
your accusations and give concrete expression to your view of minimalism.
Damning scores of artists and their art is easy to do in one abstract
non-specific mouthful. Substantiating that accusation is going to be much,
much harder...
BTW, I just saw several Agnes Martin paintings at MOMA, and although I was
not there to see them, they stopped me in my tracks...gental, forcefully
building light, eventually becoming overwhelming,saturated, and
expansive...they stilled my being and then went on to suffuse my day with
a dose of an emotion not dissimiliar to joy.
>
> Some art would seem to have only the artist himself as a narcissistic
> audience and to me that really hovers on the fringes of what is art. It is
> as if the artist failed to expose his soul to anyone but himself and in
> some cases not even to himself. Yes, my choice of pronouns may be sexist,
> here. I seem to be hovering around the idea that men fail at this sort of
> communication more often than women do, and that's pure predjudice on my
> part. I have no proof either way.
The viewer needs to create and invent their reaction to art...not merely
receive it.
>
> In the example I raise of my recent experience, I think the effort to
> wedge something into a special category at the last minute by adding a
> paragraph of "explanation" was in fact a kind of cheat. The oil paintings
> were done and dated before they could have known the theme existed. Nice
> paintings though they were, they did not and could not communicate the
> specifically requested message without those added paragraphs. To me that
> little cheat, that added burden diminished them in my eyes, but I'm biased.
Perhaps this is as much an expression of the failure of PARTICULAR
EXAMPLES of writting as anything else (FWIW, artist statements are often a
compulsory component of public relations, even on a small scale. On the
other hand, there is n need to read them, or give them additional
attention). I suppose there are writers in history who could have forged a
few good paragraphs, not undermined the art by doing so, and perhaps even
tickled the art with sugar in the bowl to spare.
-N.
--
N
To reach me, remove _xxx from my address.
N
In article <6it4bl$mng$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, car...@sonic.net wrote:
First off, hi ya Carol, I haven't yet had the pleasure of posting with
you. I enjoy your efforts and enthusiasm.
A few considerations:
> Art should speak for itself. I agree with you. It shouldn't need ANY
> explanation.
For art to 'speak for itself' it must be CONCEIVED as a-thing-in-itself,
integral. Artworks are interpenetrated by so many discourses as to make
finding a thing in itself futile. To do so is to imagine that the work is
not connected to, and dependent upon other cultural discourses and
traditions; however, you argue for the opposite in the following section
of your paragraph, particularly when you bring in the notion of context
and its importance.
...a digression...
By suggesting the context in which the art was made in (and my belief is
that that context is infinitely larger than is hinted at in your
post...art demands an extensive indoctrination with historical conventions
to even BEGIN thinking about making a painting or sharing its cultural
meaning [to simply look at art and to have a discourse of viewing art is
already an enormously sophisticated process-internalizing the codes of
presentation and representation] --all space, symbolism, and iconography
are mental cultural constructs that when they achieve critical mass,
become part of popular expression and historical convention--after
indoctrination takes place, often this knowledge is relegated to the
unconscious and our experience APPEARS seamless, effortless, without
thought, word, concept,history, or a long preface and catalogue of past
experience. Simple conventions and discourses, painting linear perspective
for example [or any experience of space in a painting (be it
mathematically gridded linear perspective, art of the middle ages, or
abstract art of the 20th century)] are communicated because the viewers
and the artists share in the conventions of that particular
spatial/artistic model.
The difficulty (for some) is that we have many models of art, space,
object, painting, etc., and it is painful reading the efforts of those who
have not yet acquired the discourses trying to fit the art into a paradigm
in which it will not fit. If you listen to evaluative statements on art in
an RAF post, which dismiss entire modes of art production,for example, you
can read behind this dismissal an inability to come to terms with
different conventions and paradigms.
> But, that is not what my argument is in this thread. My
> argument is that for one to HONESTLY critique a piece of art, he/she must
> UNDERSTAND the context of the work or else there is no validity to what the
> art critic is saying, regardless of wether the critic likes the work or not.
> With criticism, one cannot embellish the language of art speak with artsy
> poetics or philosophizing to ANY degree and expect by doing so that it's now a
> worthy piece of art.
On the contrary, 'worthy art' is made so by privileging traditions,
practices, and discourses. For renaissance painting and sculpture to have
been considered 'worthy' it was dependent upon tradition and values based
upon humanism and the rediscovery and revaluation of the ancients (radical
and new paradigms for the era). Beaux Arts tradition demanded a culture
that codified and privileged certain values and ideas...that culture no
longer exists (it has become a marginal sector of art and the cultural
'facts' which supported it have expired... the empire is over: we have
different knowledge, facts, experience,, and a new culture, and hence new
art). Many have not been sufficiently indoctrinated into contemporary
cultural expression, so hence fall back onto what they are familiar with
as a measure of things they do not yet know. It is an acculturation
process. 'Good' and 'bad' in this sense are expressions of this
acculturation or lack thereof, in addition to the ostensible individual
art judgment.
Art speak was intended to be used as a guide for
> understanding movements and ideas not to manipulate us into accepting "bad"
> art as "good" art or "good" art as "bad" art.
>
> What you're inquiring into in your post might have been best brought up as a
> separate subject of discussion. But I will give you my honest opinion if you
> bare with me while I reiterate my viewpoints, since they seem to have been
> getting lost in this thread.
>
>
> The argument in this thread is about Picasso. Could he draw accurately? Was
> he a worthy artist? And then there's an attempt to make a comparison between
> Picasso and Tamara di Lempicka in another thread. What Picasso strived for in
> his work is IMHO the opposite of what Tamara strived for in her work.
Piccasso is many things and had many modes of expression...very often he
is more of an expressionist than a classicist, so if one seeks in his
lifework the qualities of doctrinaire classical salon art, they will not
find it and be disappointed (early on Picasso and Braque explicitly
defined their work in opposition to the Beaux Arts tradition). This speaks
to the viewers expectations and demands. If one demanded to view Picasso
as a Medieval man/artist rather than a modern man/artist, they would set
themselves up for defeat and be as disappointed and as dismissive as if
they demanded that he be a conventional mid 19th century figure.
I am
> not an art critic, I'm an artist. I've had more exposure to Picasso's words
> and art than I have of Tamara's. What I've written about Tamara, as well as
> anything else, in my previous posts is based on my own observations, as an
> artist. But what I do know is, Picasso wasn't trying to paint a pretty
> picture. He wanted his work to look crude. Tamara's portraits are not crude
> in the least. How can one honestly compare the two when their intentions were
> obviously different?
So crude in fact, so bent on directing his art away from the Beaux Arts
tradition that he was a vigorous collector of oceanic artifacts...looking
to other cultures and traditions, expanding his artistic paradigm towards
a formal, (not merely narrative/content) assimilation of these tradition
into those of western culture. He and Braque stated that they did not want
to make art which for them at the time was considered Bourgeois. They
wanted brutal, raw art. They slowly moved their art in that direction. He
was not alone. He was surrounded by and interacted intimately with a group
of talented and ambitious people in many walks of life, art, literature,
theater, dance, and thought. His milieu was amongst the most explorative
and advanced of his times (almost an everybody who is everybody list). So
many artists that followed him, in his lifetime and after, have touched
base with his art (and/or with Picasso in person) before or during the
undertaking of their own artistic enterprise...his work is that widely
respected (a classical artistic 'oedipal killing of the father' was also
routine for many who were heavily influence and impressed with Picasso but
also threatened...[tip: read some of the posts in this newsgroup and you
will find at least one individual, maybe more, who are having an oedipal
episode with the master. If nothing else, RAF is a good place to observe
the degrees of the psyche's artistic maturation process, its successes and
failures]). Many of those artists who where influenced by Picasso went on
to become major artists in this century...others had little to contribute,
and some were caught in their own psyches and a destruction occurred. In
any case, Picasso is so influential, that virtually all artists were and
many still are, forced to reckon with him. That his art was not merely a
populist reiteration of academic formula was evident to his culture,
audience, and detractors. His contribution was so powerful it has helped
shape the course of much of 20th century art. What is interesting in some
of Picasso's works following certain innovations is his return to the gist
of certain traditions, but with a new vantage point and with new demands
and needs. Still, there are those who are not in a position to appreciate
or understand his achievements, like them or not.
> So, about your disappointment, Helen. Wether you write some words about your
> art or not, shouldn't make much difference, unless it's not obvious to the
> viewer what your intended outcome was (the context of the work). I think the
> art really should speak for itself.
This last sentence is again, a statement of a conceptual model of art, an
admission of an adherence to a theory if you will...by one who does not
wish to believe in theory. That last sentence is already a very
sophisticated (and historical) view of what constitutes a work of art and
the effective reception of art (context, etc). It is also a very common
modernist theory of art, and philosophy. The problem I find with it in
view of your writing (which btw I enjoy, it is insightful: RAF has many
clay-footed posters with little capacity for anything other than insulting
intelligence and ANGRILY defending their small threatened hole like a mad
rat), is that your writing seams to be arguing for the opposite. I like
this contradiction because it is one that will inevitably will be stumbled
upon when one is seriously reflecting on art in our times. To continue on
with its permutations and insights will be part of that acculturation of
contemporary art practice. To reject it will put to sleep reason and the
rifts that reason is causing in your own experience, as evidenced by your
posts and the clash between emotion and inherited mythology with a
postmodern intellect and contemporary experience.
This last sentence is again , a contradiction, unless by 'the work of art'
you mean the artifact and the entire context it exists in...how can we
experience art 'in itself'?
If one was to write a lengthy description
> of it, maybe they felt they had to, so that the work wouldn't be judged out of
> context.
But there ALWAYS is a context...so what could the work-in-itself be
independent of this?
Perhaps the time is ripe to reconsider some of your deeply held
ideological concepts & paradigms to measure them against and within the
body of your own thinking process, vis-a-vis art. Perhaps you may find
the one or the other wanting...and arrive at a different relation to some
fundamental notions of art.
Cheers,
-N
car...@sonic.net
In article <6j5ja1$q...@sjx-ixn10.ix.netcom.com>,
Matthew C. Mossbarger <moss...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> In article <6ioo43$u9i$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
> car...@sonic.net wrote:
>
later
> >in the history of art. The creation of illusion, as you put it, definitely
> >doesn't give the appearance of reality, but rather suggests it. Creating a
> >factual description was what the earlier painters strived for. They would
> >have been outcasts had they created works any other way.
> >
>
that all paintings for
> the most part was dimensionally lacking and very flat. It wasn't until
Raphael and later de Vinci
> decided that the oils could bring out something into almost lifelike
proportion and dimension.
> Almost all of that art was religiously based, and can still be seen in the
Vatican. But this does
> not mean that it was "bad art"...does it?
>
I stand corrected. Sometimes it's hard for me to think before da Vinci's
time. I've never considered paintings in flat perspective to be "bad" art but
maybe some people do. I have a deep appreciation for virtually every movement
in art. If I don't have an appreciation for it, then generally it's because
I'm not that familiar with it.
-carole
Philip Ayers
In article <6j753f$kki$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, car...@sonic.net wrote:
: > In article <6j5ja1$q...@sjx-ixn10.ix.netcom.com>,
: > Matthew C. Mossbarger <moss...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
: > >
: > > In article <6ioo43$u9i$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
: > > car...@sonic.net wrote:
: > >
: > > >Interesting point. Flat perspective didn't become accepted until much
: > later
: > > >in the history of art. The creation of illusion, as you put it,
definitely
: > > >doesn't give the appearance of reality, but rather suggests it.
Creating a
: > > >factual description was what the earlier painters strived for.
They would
: > > >have been outcasts had they created works any other way.
: > > >
: > >
: > > Actually, if you have seen painting before the Renaissance, you would see
: > that all paintings for
: > > the most part was dimensionally lacking and very flat. It wasn't until
: > Raphael and later de Vinci
: > > decided that the oils could bring out something into almost lifelike
: > proportion and dimension.
: > > Almost all of that art was religiously based, and can still be seen in the
: > Vatican. But this does
: > > not mean that it was "bad art"...does it?
: > >
Roman Painting is hardly what I call flat! The first painters of the
italian Renaissance, especially Giotto where influenced by Roman painting.
..and the romans were influenced by the classical greek painters of
frescos with very few if any example surviving.
car...@sonic.net
In article <35527bbe...@news.interlog.com>,
>
I could have worded my above sentence differently. When I come up with an
appropriate way of wording it, then I'll get back to you.
> > It shouldn't need ANY
> >explanation. But, that is not what my argument is in this thread. My
> >argument is that for one to HONESTLY critique a piece of art, he/she must
> >UNDERSTAND the context of the work or else there is no validity to what the
> >art critic is saying,
>
> What context? Is quality a context?
No. Quality is very different from context. Of course one critiques the
quality of the work. But in criticism, if one doesn't consider the context of
the work it's like putting a painting of a sheep in an exhibition of
"paintings of cows" and saying that it's the ugliest cow you've ever seen. If
one judges a painting, taking into consideration the context of the piece,
then a surrealist painting will be critiqued as a surrealist painting and an
impressionist painting will be critiqued as an impressionist painting.
> >... regardless of wether the critic likes the work or not.
> >With criticism, one cannot embellish the language of art speak with artsy
> >poetics or philosophizing to ANY degree and expect by doing so that it's
now a
> >worthy piece of art. Art speak was intended to be used as a guide for
> >understanding movements and ideas not to manipulate us into accepting "bad"
> >art as "good" art or "good" art as "bad" art.
>
> Criticism of art infers value. Value in art is primarily a matter of
> quality (technique skill craft ideas etc.)
Yes, I agree with you. Primarily, I think it is a matter of quality. But,
what does quality look like in a cubist painting, compared to a classical
painting, or an impressionist painting. An artist capable of drawing and
rendering a figure from life accurately and impeccably can choose to paint in
any context. Should that artist choose surrealism, is that critic going to
say that the artist can't draw because the drawing isn't factual?
> >We are not living in the age of Classicism. We cannot critique works the
way
> >we did in the eighteenth century.
>
> All artwork can be compared on the basis of quality regardless of it
> origin.
Right. But for instance, there was only ONE way in which to critique work of
artists such as da Vinci or Michealangelo. Their figures HAD to be of factual
representation or they weren't accepted by critics. These days what is
considered to be art of quality does not have to be of factual representation.
> > If one wants to call the poetic, philosophical
> >ramblings of an "art critic", "art speak", then that person does not know
the
> >context of the word.
>
> If an art critic or anyone wants to make a point and no one can even
> agree as to what he is talking about. I can only conclude that he has
> written nonsense. Most Artspeak is pure nonsense.
What you are saying then is it's "nonsense" that most critics are speaking and
not "artspeak".
> >The argument in this thread is about Picasso. Could he draw accurately?
> That is not the argument. Tamara doesn't draw more "accuratly" than
> Picasso. The question is could Picasso express the forms he attempted
> with skill craft and technique in a way worthy of being considered
> great art. Most great art goes far beyond accuracy. A fine cartoonist
> of illustrator does not draw forms with realistic accuracy.
>
> If a piece of artwork looks like something a student or a third rate
> illustrator could easily do you can call it what you will, but I
> don't consider it great art.
Well, if I saw it that way, then I probably *wouldn't* call it great art
either.
> > Was
> >he a worthy artist? And then there's an attempt to make a comparison
between
> >Picasso and Tamara di Lempicka in another thread. What Picasso strived for
in
> >his work is IMHO the opposite of what Tamara strived for in her work.
> I said they both wanted to do a portrait.
> Well that doesn't satisfy you. So tell us what Picasso was STRIVING
> for that was so different from any other portrait? I bet you can't
(I'm not looking for satisfaction. If I was looking for that, I wouldn't be
spending this much time on the computer.) Of course they both wanted to do a
portrait. But were their intentions the same in painting their portraits?
No, they weren't. Was the context entirely different? Yes, it was.
If you're talking about Picasso's early cubist portraits, then his aim was to
only use shades of gray, green or brown while painting the portraits as if he
was seeing them from many different angles at once. He basically was striving
to investigate the structure of the object. The only change he really made in
his later cubist portraits was with the addition of vibrant colors. However ,
I feel with the Gertrude Stein portrait, Picasso was more or less in a
state of limbo. He hadn't yet begun cubism until just after doing Stein's
portrait. Possibly you would have liked the portrait had he left it alone
earlier in its development. But he was not satisfied and was searching for
something different. It was with THAT portrait that Picasso decided never to
work with a live model again. He had re-painted Gertrude's face from memory
and preferred the "mask-like' quality. I'm not entirely sure if he was happy
with the finished portrait or not. He was striving for creating a head that
would say what he wanted it to say, but the forms he had expressed weren't the
ones that he wanted to express. It is quite clear to me that his intentions
with this portrait was to solve a new problem. It was the problem of African
or Oriental art on which he wanted others to speculate. This was the time
that African and Oriental art started to become a huge influence
in Picasso's work. It was that "mask-like" quality of Gertrude's portrait
that spurred it.
> > But what I do know is, Picasso wasn't trying to paint a pretty
> >picture. He wanted his work to look crude.
> It does indeed looks crude. So does most lousy artwork. I might add
> that it also looks crappy. Was Picasso STRIVING for this context? If
> so does it make the picture any better? Is that why it is considered
> great art?
No, I don't think "crappy' was something he was aiming for. I think not
everyone is going to understand why his art is considered "great art". If one
doesn't like his art, there is a lot to "give up" in order to appreciate it's
existence as something valuable. Some people can't do that. I still shutter
whenever I hear someone say "Koons". It's just what it is. If a group of
people want to designate certain art as being "great", that's fine. I think
what's important here is that we don't lose touch of our own work.
I think we, as artists, need to totally believe in what we're creating,
otherwise what value are we getting from our work?
> I believe most of Picasso's work looks intentionally crappy. Mainly
> because he couldn't do any better. Warhol was more honest. he infered
> that his work was all a put-on. Does the fact that he achieved this
> goal make it great art?
I think Warhol and Picasso had something in common, they both knew how to play
with the critics. They knew how to get attention and make money and succeeded
in doing so. And apparently Picasso DID own up to playing the game. Sure,
Picasso knew what the critics wanted and he gave it to them. It makes him a
good sales man; But does it make him less of an artist? Maybe if he hadn't
given in to what he thought he had to in order to "make it" as an artist, he
would've produced works of even greater value than he did. I could say the
same for Tamara di Lempicka. If she'd pushed herself to disregard what would
be accepted, maybe her works could have been stronger too. Just my opinion.
> > Tamara's portraits are not crude
> >in the least. How can one honestly compare the two when their intentions
were
> >obviously different?
>
> YOU JUST COMPARED THEM.
No, I differentiated them. In no way did I compare them. Give me two
impressionist paintings, or two classical paintings, or two abstract paintings
or two surrealist paintings, etc.. and I'll compare them.
> Now you can go one step further and ask whether you prefer crappy
> crude to not crappy crude and compare further.
It depends on the context. <grin>
That would make for an interesting movement, "crappy crude", it has a nice
ring to it. <grin>
I don't like crude impressionism or crude classical,etc. But I like some
crude abstract and some crude expressionism, etc. As far as the "crappy"
stuff, I base my judgement on quality, by first looking at the context of the
work....
JCMandel
I apologize if this has already been posted, but I did not see this thread from
the beginning... I have no evidence that this story is not apocryphal, but the
story goes that after Gertrude Stein sat over 80 times for her portrait, she
looked at it and said, "It doesn't even LOOK like me." Picasso supposedly
said, "Don't worry... it will."
As for his drawing abilities, check out the drawings of the human form he did
at 13 and 14 years old. Unbelievable.
N
> > Criticism of art infers value. Value in art is primarily a matter of
> > quality (technique skill craft ideas etc.)
Nope. Value in technique, craft, etc. is a matter of technique, craft,
etc. value in art is artistic value. Art involves conception and
execution. Craft is only a part of the equation.
>
> Yes, I agree with you. Primarily, I think it is a matter of quality. But,
> what does quality look like in a cubist painting, compared to a classical
> painting, or an impressionist painting. An artist capable of drawing and
> rendering a figure from life accurately and impeccably can choose to paint in
> any context.
Nope. You are confusing genres. Being capable of drawing whether it be a
figure from life 'accurately' and 'impeccably'(however you might define
these terms) , does not automatically enable you to become capable of
painting (it will not even enable you to be a capable all around
draughtsperson (many classical draughtspersons cannot get a capable
expressionistic drawing together, and visa versa [just as being able to
perform mozart does not mean you can be Elvis], they are different
abilities and the one does not necessarily lead to the other). Painting is
very different from drawing...many can draw but are terrible painters and
the other way around. Furthermore, there is a problem with much
'criticism' on this NG when critiqueing painting by judging it as a
drawing...not only metaphors but disciplines and practices are being mixed
and confused.
> Should that artist choose surrealism, is that critic going to
> say that the artist can't draw because the drawing isn't factual?
There is little in painting, particularly Beaux Art painting/drawing that
is factual and realistic these days. Over a hundred years ago, the tropes
for realism were carried with this sort of painting, but time, culture,
and facts have changed. Photography, and more importantly film have taken
over the tropes of realism in contemporary culture...the entire game and
the technics of the enterprise have irreversably changed. Beaux Arts
realism and classicism are now tropes for an outmoded pradigm and
nostalgic imagery having little to do with representation of reality. In
fact, in the pictorial arts, it is modernist painting and its succesors
that have carried contemporary realist tropes in approaching
representation through painted experience: surface, presence, movemnt,
fragmentation, etc, and later the obverse in postmodern experience. Nymphs
in flowing pixi gowns bearing water, soldiers in Roman centurian garb,
citizens in Greeco-Roman costume, the fixed and static viewer etc, etc.,
have not been central representation tropes for western culture in a very
long time. Art,value, quality, and meaning in contemporary western art are
not remotely dependent on those traditions.
> > >We are not living in the age of Classicism. We cannot critique works the
> way
> > >we did in the eighteenth century.
> >
> > All artwork can be compared on the basis of quality regardless of it
> > origin.
>
> Right. But for instance, there was only ONE way in which to critique work of
> artists such as da Vinci or Michealangelo. Their figures HAD to be of factual
> representation or they weren't accepted by critics. These days what is
> considered to be art of quality does not have to be of factual representation.
>
> > > If one wants to call the poetic, philosophical
> > >ramblings of an "art critic", "art speak", then that person does not know
> the
> > >context of the word.
> >
> > If an art critic or anyone wants to make a point and no one can even
> > agree as to what he is talking about. I can only conclude that he has
> > written nonsense. Most Artspeak is pure nonsense.
>
People in disagreement is no proof whatsoever of nonsense. It is only
proof of people in disagreement.
> What you are saying then is it's "nonsense" that most critics are speaking and
> not "artspeak".
>
> > >The argument in this thread is about Picasso. Could he draw accurately?
I believe this thread stemmed from Picasso's painting (Gertrude Stein).
His drawing is another issue. You cannot judge a painting by drawing just
as you cannot judge a painting by sculpture. These activities are
different and Picasso's painting was a product of his accomplishment and
innovation as a painter. One needs to understand modern painting, not
merely illustration or drawing, to get at Picasso's painting. Otherwise,
you abstract and reduce painting and mythically turn it into drawing
(which it is not) and experieince it as a drawing. If one would not
experience a sculpture as a drawing why would one do so with a painting.
this shows little critical facility and an inability to come to terms
with, or the experience to view...paintings. You cannot understand modern
painting thruogh illustration, they are VERY different animals.
> > That is not the argument. Tamara doesn't draw more "accuratly" than
> > Picasso. The question is could Picasso express the forms he attempted
> > with skill craft and technique in a way worthy of being considered
> > great art. Most great art goes far beyond accuracy. A fine cartoonist
> > of illustrator does not draw forms with realistic accuracy.
'Accuracy' has nothing to do with a Beaux Art tradition in drawing, nor is
the latter a measure of drawing. It could be said that the tradition of
Beaux Arts is an expression of the mediocrity of drawing. It was a common,
uninventive formulaic system, easily taught and learned. Hacks galore were
produced as well as some interesting art. It is a a measure only of itself
and its own practice...a small chapter in western art.
car...@sonic.net
In article <redirect-120...@1cust93.tnt5.nyc3.da.uu.net>,
redi...@earthlink.net_xxx (N) wrote:
I am pleased to make your acquaintance "N".
> In article <6j82sq$8m$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, car...@sonic.net wrote:
(Mdeli wrote)
> > > Criticism of art infers value. Value in art is primarily a matter of
> > > quality (technique skill craft ideas etc.)
> Nope. Value in technique, craft, etc. is a matter of technique, craft,
> etc. value in art is artistic value. Art involves conception and
> execution. Craft is only a part of the equation.
(carole wrote)
> > Yes, I agree with you. Primarily, I think it is a matter of quality.
> > But,
> > what does quality look like in a cubist painting, compared to a classical
> > painting, or an impressionist painting. An artist capable of drawing and
> > rendering a figure from life accurately and impeccably can choose to paint
> > in any context.
> Nope. You are confusing genres. Being capable of drawing whether it be a
> figure from life 'accurately' and 'impeccably'(however you might define
> these terms) , does not automatically enable you to become capable of
> painting (it will not even enable you to be a capable all around
> draughtsperson (many classical draughtspersons cannot get a capable
> expressionistic drawing together, and visa versa [just as being able to
> perform mozart does not mean you can be Elvis], they are different
> abilities and the one does not necessarily lead to the other). Painting is
> very different from drawing...many can draw but are terrible painters and
> the other way around. Furthermore, there is a problem with much
> 'criticism' on this NG when critiqueing painting by judging it as a
> drawing...not only metaphors but disciplines and practices are being mixed
> and confused.
But an artist CAN CHOOSE to paint in any context they desire. My point
doesn't suggest that the artist is capable of executing a quality piece in any
or every context in which they desire to paint. I was merely trying to argue
a point with Mani that if an artist that was capable of drawing an impeccably
accurate factual representation of an object, chose to paint a surrealist
painting, a critic should not dismiss the piece based on inaccurate drawing
skills. The critic should critique the piece as a surrealist painting.
(Obviously with surrealism the objects painted are surreal.) You and I
basically agree "N". Although, you are "literally" better than I am at
explaining your point. And you took it a step farther than I and stated
something that I had overlooked.
Although, it is something that I deal with in my everyday life, you stated
"Painting is very different from drawing...many can draw but are terrible
painters", I neglected to make that point. I am a "lifelong" student of
Camille Przewodek. I only have another thirty plus years to go. I figure
she'll quit mentoring me by the time she reaches eighty. By then I'll be
sixty and maybe I will have reached a semblance of my goals toward
impressionism. As for now, it's a struggle combining her teaching within the
entirely different scope of work I do, which is sculpture and abstract
painting and drawing. And by drawing, I am referring to accurate factual
representations. So, I know first hand that drawing and painting are two
different creatures.
(carole)
> > Should that artist choose surrealism, is that critic going to
> > say that the artist can't draw because the drawing isn't factual?
> There is little in painting, particularly Beaux Art painting/drawing that
> is factual and realistic these days. Over a hundred years ago, the tropes
> for realism were carried with this sort of painting, but time, culture,
> and facts have changed. Photography, and more importantly film have taken
> over the tropes of realism in contemporary culture...the entire game and
> the technics of the enterprise have irreversably changed. Beaux Arts
> realism and classicism are now tropes for an outmoded pradigm and
> nostalgic imagery having little to do with representation of reality. In
> fact, in the pictorial arts, it is modernist painting and its succesors
> that have carried contemporary realist tropes in approaching
> representation through painted experience: surface, presence, movemnt,
> fragmentation, etc, and later the obverse in postmodern experience. Nymphs
> in flowing pixi gowns bearing water, soldiers in Roman centurian garb,
> citizens in Greeco-Roman costume, the fixed and static viewer etc, etc.,
> have not been central representation tropes for western culture in a very
> long time. Art,value, quality, and meaning in contemporary western art are
> not remotely dependent on those traditions.
Very well said.
(carole)
> > > >We are not living in the age of Classicism. We cannot critique works
the
> > way
> > > >we did in the eighteenth century.
(Mdeli)
> > > All artwork can be compared on the basis of quality regardless of it
> > > origin.
(carole)
> > Right. But for instance, there was only ONE way in which to critique work
of
> > artists such as da Vinci or Michealangelo. Their figures HAD to be of
factual
> > representation or they weren't accepted by critics. These days what is
> > considered to be art of quality does not have to be of factual
representation.
(carole)
> > > > If one wants to call the poetic, philosophical
> > > >ramblings of an "art critic", "art speak", then that person does not
> > > >know the
> > > >context of the word.
(Mdeli)
> > > If an art critic or anyone wants to make a point and no one can even
> > > agree as to what he is talking about. I can only conclude that he has
> > > written nonsense. Most Artspeak is pure nonsense.
> People in disagreement is no proof whatsoever of nonsense. It is only
> proof of people in disagreement.
(carole)
> > What you are saying then is it's "nonsense" that most critics are speaking
> >and not "artspeak".
> > > >The argument in this thread is about Picasso. Could he draw
accurately?
> I believe this thread stemmed from Picasso's painting (Gertrude Stein).
> His drawing is another issue. You cannot judge a painting by drawing just
> as you cannot judge a painting by sculpture. These activities are
> different and Picasso's painting was a product of his accomplishment and
> innovation as a painter. One needs to understand modern painting, not
> merely illustration or drawing, to get at Picasso's painting. Otherwise,
> you abstract and reduce painting and mythically turn it into drawing
> (which it is not) and experieince it as a drawing. If one would not
> experience a sculpture as a drawing why would one do so with a painting.
> this shows little critical facility and an inability to come to terms
> with, or the experience to view...paintings. You cannot understand modern
> painting thruogh illustration, they are VERY different animals.
(Mdeli)
> > > That is not the argument. Tamara doesn't draw more "accuratly" than
> > > Picasso. The question is could Picasso express the forms he attempted
> > > with skill craft and technique in a way worthy of being considered
> > > great art. Most great art goes far beyond accuracy. A fine cartoonist
> > > of illustrator does not draw forms with realistic accuracy.
>
> 'Accuracy' has nothing to do with a Beaux Art tradition in drawing, nor is
> the latter a measure of drawing. It could be said that the tradition of
> Beaux Arts is an expression of the mediocrity of drawing. It was a common,
> uninventive formulaic system, easily taught and learned. Hacks galore were
> produced as well as some interesting art. It is a a measure only of itself
> and its own practice...a small chapter in western art.
>
> -N
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
N
<<major snip.>>
> What context? Is quality a context?
>
> >... regardless of wether the critic likes the work or not.
> >With criticism, one cannot embellish the language of art speak with artsy
> >poetics or philosophizing to ANY degree and expect by doing so that
it's now a
> >worthy piece of art. Art speak was intended to be used as a guide for
> >understanding movements and ideas not to manipulate us into accepting "bad"
> >art as "good" art or "good" art as "bad" art.
>
> Criticism of art infers value. Value in art is primarily a matter of
> quality (technique skill craft ideas etc.)
determinatin of quality is an act of criticism. Criticism is dependent
upon ideology, ideas, concepts, theories,as they inform and guide
aesthetic experience.
> >snip
> >We are not living in the age of Classicism. We cannot critique works the way
> >we did in the eighteenth century.
>
> All artwork can be compared on the basis of quality regardless of it
> origin.
All determinants of quality are ideological and subjective.They are
victims to the discourses that have framed the practices that are being
assessed. The deeper the indoctrination and the ideology, the less
conscious it will be in the critic or viewer. Mistaking unconscious or
unthinking criticism and judgements in the experience of art, for divine
or transcendent eternal values, is simply an admission of ignorance of the
ideology that one is partisan to. To be conscious of one's bias and still
desire to, and to proceed to, assign divine or transcendent eternal values
to art is to be deceptive, mislead, and manuipiulate the ignorant.
Demagogue comes to mind. Charlatan. Furthermore, if one prefers to live in
a state of denial as to the cultural practice of aesthetics, it is
doubtful that a more informed response may be attained.
<<snip more ideolgically based bickering>>
mdeli
On Mon, 11 May 1998 05:11:43 -0500, redi...@earthlink.net_xxx (N)
wrote:
>In article <3566286f...@news.min.net>, you wrote:
>> In some museum
>> examples, minimalism goes to such an extreme as to be nearly blank. To me
>> that's also uncommunicative.
>
>Some would find that less can be more.
>
>>The whole message of such art seems to be,
>> "how little can I get away with saying or doing and still sell this stuff
>> for big bucks?"
>
>That is a very cynical reaction.
Cynic: Someone who sees things as they are rather than as they ought
to be.
>
>> It is the game of seeing how much I can cheat and still
>> shock and therefore please those who want to be shocked by my cheating.
>> It's a fun game but it seems to be wearing thin even with its proponents.
>
>...Not only cynical but unsubstantiated. I'm curious...who would you
>suggest are the proponents of 'this game' of minimalism, which is wearing
>thin? This is a time to be very concrete...a list of artists would qualify
>your accusations and give concrete expression to your view of minimalism.
All Abstract Expressionists you can look up their names.
All their imitators.
All no skill realists from Matisse to Mondrian to Hockney. They have
appeared in artsy magazines for the last fifty years go to the library
and museums and have a look.
mdeli
On 12 May 1998 04:19:09 GMT, jcma...@aol.com (JCMandel) wrote:
>I apologize if this has already been posted, but I did not see this thread from
>the beginning... I have no evidence that this story is not apocryphal, but the
>story goes that after Gertrude Stein sat over 80 times for her portrait, she
>looked at it and said, "It doesn't even LOOK like me." Picasso supposedly
>said, "Don't worry... it will."
Do tell us when this phenomenon finally occurred.
>As for his drawing abilities, check out the drawings of the human form he did
>at 13 and 14 years old. Unbelievable.
Unbelievable if you haven't seen the work of other young talents. The
19th century has many examples. Picasso's early work does look
promising. His father was an art teacher and gave him an academic
foundation. The problem with Picasso was that he never improved very
much.
It is interesting to compare this with Dali whose early work was hack
fashionable impressionism and then modern academic abstraction. His
work steadily improved but his real abilities only materialized during
his mid 20's.
mdeli
On Tue, 12 May 1998 00:17:17 -0500, in rec.arts.fine you wrote:
>In article <6j82sq$8m$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, car...@sonic.net wrote:
I wrote this not Carol.
>> > Criticism of art infers value. Value in art is primarily a matter of
>> > quality (technique skill craft ideas etc.)
>
>Nope. Value in technique, craft, etc. is a matter of technique, craft,
>etc. value in art is artistic value. Art involves conception and
>execution. Craft is only a part of the equation.
True craft is only a part of the equation. You forgot to notice the
word etc.. However without a foundation of technique etc. conception
and execution are worthless, as is the case in most Modern Academic
art.
Self expression without skill is self delusion.
> Being capable of drawing whether it be a
>figure from life 'accurately' and 'impeccably'(however you might define
>these terms) , does not automatically enable you to become capable of
>painting (it will not even enable you to be a capable all around
>draughtsperson (many classical draughtspersons cannot get a capable
>expressionistic drawing together, and visa versa [just as being able to
>perform mozart does not mean you can be Elvis], they are different
>abilities and the one does not necessarily lead to the other).
I suspect that both these artists knew their craft. At base, the
scales and some music theory and they could compose melody. The artist
who can't draw is an artistic cripple.
>There is little in painting, particularly Beaux Art painting/drawing that
>is factual and realistic these days. Over a hundred years ago, the tropes
>for realism were carried with this sort of painting, but time, culture,
>and facts have changed. Photography, and more importantly film have taken
>over the tropes of realism in contemporary culture.
Photography hasn't replaced painting. Its a myth used to excuse an
inability to draw.
>..the entire game and
>the technics of the enterprise have irreversably changed.
Styles have continually changed in both past and the Modern Era. So
what.
> Beaux Arts
>realism and classicism are now tropes for an outmoded pradigm and
>nostalgic imagery having little to do with representation of reality.
Is all realistic painting of today just outmoded beaux arts realism? I
doubt that you have even seen Beaux arts realism.
> In
>fact, in the pictorial arts, it is modernist painting and its succesors
>that have carried contemporary realist tropes in approaching
>representation through painted experience: surface, presence, movemnt,
>fragmentation, etc, and later the obverse in postmodern experience.
Whatever that means.
> Nymphs
>in flowing pixi gowns bearing water, soldiers in Roman centurian garb,
>citizens in Greeco-Roman costume, the fixed and static viewer etc, etc.,
>have not been central representation tropes for western culture in a very
>long time. Art,value,
Does that make these paintings bad?
>.. quality, and meaning in contemporary western art are
>not remotely dependent on those traditions.
You are talking about subject matter not quality and meaning.
I wrote:
>> > If an art critic or anyone wants to make a point and no one can even
>> > agree as to what he is talking about. I can only conclude that he has
>> > written nonsense. Most Artspeak is pure nonsense.
>I believe this thread stemmed from Picasso's painting (Gertrude Stein).
>His drawing is another issue. You cannot judge a painting by drawing just
>as you cannot judge a painting by sculpture.
Painting is drawing in color, with paint or something else.
>These activities are
>different and Picasso's painting was a product of his accomplishment and
>innovation as a painter.
Oh, is that why his drawing is so third rate?
> One needs to understand modern painting, not
>merely illustration or drawing, to get at Picasso's painting.
In other word you are saying that those who disagree with you just
don't understand Modern painting. Tell us someting of this
UNDERSTANDING which you posess. Perhaps you just don't UNDERSTAND
Beaux arts realism.
>Otherwise,
>you abstract and reduce painting and mythically turn it into drawing
>(which it is not) and experieince it as a drawing.
In other words when Matisse's painting of a hand looks like a flat
flipper painted by a child, it isn't really because of his lack of
drawing abilities. I suppose you believe that by patzing with the
label of the category of an artwork it justifies considering this
great art.
> If one would not
>experience a sculpture as a drawing why would one do so with a painting.
>this shows little critical facility and an inability to come to terms
>with, or the experience to view...paintings. You cannot understand modern
>painting thruogh illustration, they are VERY different animals.
They are all paintings and drawings. Whatever you chose to label a
picture if its poorly done its crap and no label or excuse can remedy
the fact.
>'Accuracy' has nothing to do with a Beaux Art tradition in drawing, nor is
>the latter a measure of drawing. It could be said that the tradition of
>Beaux Arts is an expression of the mediocrity of drawing. It was a common,
>uninventive formulaic system, easily taught and learned.
The above statement is Modern Academic Art mythology. I doubt that
most here have even seen any works that this statement complains
about.
It is a statement designed to appease the imagination of those who
study art but cant draw and teachers who teach a course in drawing of
which they know practically nothing.
>Hacks galore were
>produced as well as some interesting art.
The same can be said for Modern Academic Art.except for a larger
preponderance of hacks.
>It is a a measure only of itself
>and its own practice...a small chapter in western art.
Name ten 19th century Beaux Art hacks you have even seen.
mdeli
On Mon, 11 May 1998 23:50:50 GMT, car...@sonic.net wrote:
>> What context? Is quality a context?
>
>No. Quality is very different from context. Of course one critiques the
>quality of the work. But in criticism, if one doesn't consider the context of
>the work it's like putting a painting of a sheep in an exhibition of
>"paintings of cows" and saying that it's the ugliest cow you've ever seen.
?
> If
>one judges a painting, taking into consideration the context of the piece,
>then a surrealist painting will be critiqued as a surrealist painting and an
>impressionist painting will be critiqued as an impressionist painting.
One can compare a figure in any two paintings. One can say how Holbein
painted eyes differently from Picasso. One can compare differences and
similarities. Klee painted abstractions with a more classical
technique than Kandinski. I can compare his surface to 19century
painting.
>> Criticism of art infers value. Value in art is primarily a matter of
>> quality (technique skill craft ideas etc.)
>
>Yes, I agree with you. Primarily, I think it is a matter of quality.
Well that is my main point.
Artwork lacking quality hasn't much value. No quality, no masterpiece.
That is why I reject the majority of what is at the moment considered
great Modern Art.
> But,
>what does quality look like in a cubist painting, compared to a classical
>painting, or an impressionist painting.
As I said, "technique skill craft ideas etc. " These qualities in
great art are hard to duplicate. As to impressionism, it exists as a
part of classical painting. It isn't unique to the period of that
name. The same can be said for abstraction which is an even older form
of painting. Most artzy fartzy critic go off on long explinatiions
comparing Mondrian's stripes to Vermeer. I always like to compare
Pollock's masterpieces to Micheallangelo's drop cloths.
>> All artwork can be compared on the basis of quality regardless of it
>> origin.
>
>Right. But for instance, there was only ONE way in which to critique work of
>artists such as da Vinci or Michealangelo.
Really?
> Their figures HAD to be of factual
>representation or they weren't accepted by critics.
Picasso and Matisse's figures are factual in much the same sense. An
area is recognizable as a hand and can be distinguished from an eye.
> These days what is
>considered to be art of quality does not have to be of factual representation.
Look at the abstraction in a fine Persian miniature painted around
1600. Abstraction is not confined to "these days." El Greco,
Tintoretto and Simon Martini aren't factual. The abstraction of a rug
in a corner of Vermeer is finer in quality than most anything today.
>> That is not the argument. Tamara doesn't draw more "accurately" than
>> Picasso. The question is could Picasso express the forms he attempted
>> with skill craft and technique in a way worthy of being considered
>> great art. Most great art goes far beyond accuracy. A fine cartoonist
>> of illustrator does not draw forms with realistic accuracy.
>>
>> If a piece of artwork looks like something a student or a third rate
>> illustrator could easily do you can call it what you will, but I
>> don't consider it great art.
>
>Well, if I saw it that way, then I probably *wouldn't* call it great art
>either.
>> I said they both wanted to do a portrait.
>> Well that doesn't satisfy you. So tell us what Picasso was STRIVING
>> for that was so different from any other portrait? I bet you can't
>
>(I'm not looking for satisfaction. If I was looking for that, I wouldn't be
>spending this much time on the computer.) Of course they both wanted to do a
>portrait. But were their intentions the same in painting their portraits?
>No, they weren't. Was the context entirely different? Yes, it was.
So tell us what you know about their intentions that I don't know. You
still haven't clearly explained what you mean by "context."
>If you're talking about Picasso's early cubist portraits, then his aim was to
>only use shades of gray, green or brown while painting the portraits as if he
>was seeing form different angles.
Well it doesn't succeed in looking like something seen from different
angles.
I see most cubist work as boring repetitive and unoriginal. In
Picasso's case it is drab and usually painted in simple axanometric
perspective and backed up by a bunch of psudo-philosophical babble.
> He basically was striving
>to investigate the structure of the object.
So who isn't? He hardly succeeded.
> The only change he really made in
>his later cubist portraits was with the addition of vibrant colors.
The drawing remained just as bad and often worse.
> However ,
>I feel with the Gertrude Stein portrait, Picasso was more or less in a
>state of limbo. He hadn't yet begun cubism until just after doing Stein's
>portrait. Possibly you would have liked the portrait had he left it alone
>earlier in its development.
Excuses. The portrait is ordinary student work considered a
masterpiece because its signed Picasso. The quality is fifth rate
conformity.
> But he was not satisfied and was searching for
>something different. It was with THAT portrait that Picasso decided never to
>work with a live model again.
Good point. He couldn't work from the model so he resorted to Photos
and projection. However even these aids his portraiture got even worse
and there are plenty of examples.
> He had re-painted Gertrude's face from memory
>and preferred the "mask-like' quality.
I call it second rate student quality.
> I'm not entirely sure if he was happy
>with the finished portrait or not. He was striving for creating a head that
>would say what he wanted it to say, but the forms he had expressed weren't the
>ones that he wanted to express. It is quite clear to me that his intentions
>with this portrait was to solve a new problem.
And how do you know all this?
> It was the problem of African
>or Oriental art on which he wanted others to speculate. This was the time
>that African and Oriental art started to become a huge influence
>in Picasso's work. It was that "mask-like" quality of Gertrude's portrait
>that spurred it.
Even if all this were true it doesn't make the portrait any better
does it?
>> > But what I do know is, Picasso wasn't trying to paint a pretty
>> >picture. He wanted his work to look crude.
>
>> It does indeed looks crude. So does most lousy artwork. I might add
>> that it also looks crappy. Was Picasso STRIVING for this context? If
>> so does it make the picture any better? Is that why it is considered
>> great art?
>
>No, I don't think "crappy' was something he was aiming for. I think not
>everyone is going to understand why his art is considered "great art".
I do understand why. I just don't agree.
> If one
>doesn't like his art, there is a lot to "give up" in order to appreciate it's
>existence as something valuable. Some people can't do that.
Sounds like religion; "you don't know what you are giving up if you
don't believe in my god."
>I think we, as artists, need to totally believe in what we're creating,
>otherwise what value are we getting from our work?
I suspect every artist good or bad believes this to some degree, so
what.
>> I believe most of Picasso's work looks intentionally crappy. Mainly
>> because he couldn't do any better. Warhol was more honest. he infered
>> that his work was all a put-on. Does the fact that he achieved this
>> goal make it great art?
>
>I think Warhol and Picasso had something in common, they both knew how to play
>with the critics. They knew how to get attention and make money and succeeded
>in doing so. And apparently Picasso DID own up to playing the game. Sure,
>Picasso knew what the critics wanted and he gave it to them. It makes him a
>good sales man; But does it make him less of an artist?
Not at all. Its his crappy quality that does it.
>> > Tamara's portraits are not crude
>> >in the least. How can one honestly compare the two when their intentions
>were
>> >obviously different?
>>
>> YOU JUST COMPARED THEM.
>
>No, I differentiated them. In no way did I compare them. Give me two
>impressionist paintings, or two classical paintings, or two abstract paintings
>or two surrealist paintings, etc.. and I'll compare them.
In other word its OK to DIFFERENTIATE Picasso from Holbein but I'm not
allowed to compare them.
>> Now you can go one step further and ask whether you prefer crappy
>> crude to not crappy crude and compare further.
>
>It depends on the context. <grin>
>
>That would make for an interesting movement, "crappy crude", it has a nice
>ring to it. <grin>
Its already antiquated. Its most of the stuff in the modern section of
museums. Its fashionable. You are behind the times.
>I don't like crude impressionism or crude classical,etc. But I like some
>crude abstract and some crude expressionism, etc. As far as the "crappy"
>stuff, I base my judgement on quality, by first looking at the context of the
>work....
I look for quality. If that is absent I don't waste time on much else.
I might add that you are one of the few here willing to discuss
serious points..
This is unlike the usual patronizing and psychobabble coming from the
artzy fartzies here, who address any contradiction to their
conformist beliefs as some sort of religious blasphemy.
JCMandel
I said:
<< ...the story goes that after Gertrude Stein sat over 80 times for her
portrait, she looked at it and said, "It doesn't even LOOK like me." Picasso
supposedly said, "Don't worry... it will."
And then someone who has NO sense of humor and therefore has an inherent
inability to judge art, said:
>>Do tell us when this phenomenon finally occurred.
How sad.
N
In article <3558c755...@news.interlog.com>, hug...@interlog.com
(mdeli) wrote:
MDeli,
The last time I posted to you was well over a year ago. As I stated then,
I still believe now. Your ignorance, deliberte lies, demagoguery, and
insults doom you to communicate with like minded individuals. I have no
interest whatsoever in conversing with you. You do not merit a response.
-N
Marilyn
Dear N,
I find this post really amusing because, in fact you are responding
to MDeli. You are like the young aristocrat caught slumming. You
know you shouldn't be here, wasting your time, lowering your
high-born self, and yet... somehow you are enjoying it.
Hmmm, wonder what Freud would say or even Jung?
Maybe MDeli is your shadow. The shadow knows...
Marilyn
mdeli
On Wed, 13 May 1998 00:38:08 -0500, redi...@earthlink.net_xxx (N)
wrote:
>In article <3558c755...@news.interlog.com>, hug...@interlog.com
>(mdeli) wrote:
>MDeli,
>The last time I posted to you was well over a year ago. As I stated then,
>I still believe now. Your ignorance, deliberte lies, demagoguery, and
>insults doom you to communicate with like minded individuals. I have no
>interest whatsoever in conversing with you. You do not merit a response.
>
>-N
>
>--
>N
>To reach me, remove _xxx from my address.
I NEVER POSTED THIS MESSAGE TO YOU OR ANYONE ELSE. PERHAPS SOMEONE WHO
IS PISSED OFF POSTED IT IN MY NAME. As anyone here can see I answer
your posts where I feel they are worthy of an answer.
Last year there was some idiot who signed his posts with my name.
Please note that in one of your last posts you failed to give me
credit for my statements. I believe you are quoting a post which was
addressed to me recently. I recall reading this before. I think it was
from Eicher.
I DO NOT find your posts ignorant, containing deliberate lies,
demagoguery, or insulting.
Anyone can say anything they wish about me. I am capable of answering
in kind.
car...@sonic.net
Mani, wake up. It's just a bad dream.
-carole
> On Wed, 13 May 1998 00:38:08 -0500, redi...@earthlink.net_xxx (N)
> wrote:
> >MDeli,
> >The last time I posted to you was well over a year ago. As I stated then,
> >I still believe now. Your ignorance, deliberte lies, demagoguery, and
> >insults doom you to communicate with like minded individuals. I have no
> >interest whatsoever in conversing with you. You do not merit a response.
> >
> >-N
> >
> >--
> >N
> >To reach me, remove _xxx from my address.
In article <3559d58f...@news.interlog.com>,
hug...@interlog.com (mdeli) wrote:
> I NEVER POSTED THIS MESSAGE TO YOU OR ANYONE ELSE. PERHAPS SOMEONE WHO
> IS PISSED OFF POSTED IT IN MY NAME. As anyone here can see I answer
> your posts where I feel they are worthy of an answer.
>
> Last year there was some idiot who signed his posts with my name.
>
> Please note that in one of your last posts you failed to give me
> credit for my statements. I believe you are quoting a post which was
> addressed to me recently. I recall reading this before. I think it was
> from Eicher.
>
> I DO NOT find your posts ignorant, containing deliberate lies,
> demagoguery, or insulting.
>
> Anyone can say anything they wish about me. I am capable of answering
> in kind.
>
> --
> Mani DeLi
> ...no skill no art
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
car...@sonic.net
In article <3558c5af...@news.interlog.com>,
(Mdeli)
> >> What context? Is quality a context?
(carole)
> >No. Quality is very different from context. Of course one critiques the
> >quality of the work. But in criticism, if one doesn't consider the context
of
> >the work it's like putting a painting of a sheep in an exhibition of
> >"paintings of cows" and saying that it's the ugliest cow you've ever seen.
(Mdeli)
> ?
I went on a quest and found a page that defines "context" in regards to art.
You can find it at http://www.arts.ouc.bc.ca/fiar/elements.html
(carole)
> > If
> >one judges a painting, taking into consideration the context of the piece,
> >then a surrealist painting will be critiqued as a surrealist painting and
an
> >impressionist painting will be critiqued as an impressionist painting.
(Mdeli)
> One can compare a figure in any two paintings. One can say how Holbein
> painted eyes differently from Picasso. One can compare differences and
> similarities. Klee painted abstractions with a more classical
> technique than Kandinski. I can compare his surface to 19century
> painting.
Yes, one CAN compare a figure in two paintings. As you stated, "Klee painted
abstractions with a more classical technique than Kandinski" is an excellent
comparison. Note that I never said one COULDN'T compare two paintings of two
different genres. In a previous post I differentiated Tamara de Lempicka's
portraits to Picasso's portraits because I do not not how to "honestly",
meaning truthfully, compare them. If it's "skill" we are discussing, it's
easier for me to make comparisons of paintings that are of similiar context,
rather than from opposite ends of the spectrum. Previously I stated that I do
not know how one can truthfully, compare Tamara's and Picasso's works in
regards to "skill". Not to say that one cannot. I do not know how to
without being biased. You made a safe comparison between Klee and Kandinski,
but in comparing Tamara and Picasso, you stated that one had skill and the
other didn't. I don't see that as a truthful comparison. I see it as a
subjective opinion.
> >> Criticism of art infers value. Value in art is primarily a matter of
> >> quality (technique skill craft ideas etc.)
> >
> >Yes, I agree with you. Primarily, I think it is a matter of quality.
(Mdeli)
> Well that is my main point.
>
> Artwork lacking quality hasn't much value. No quality, no masterpiece.
> That is why I reject the majority of what is at the moment considered
> great Modern Art.
How do you know that the majority of what is at the moment considered great
modern art is lacking quality? You've stated many times that you base quality
on technique, skill, craft, ideas, etc.. And I'm really curious what comes
after the "etc...". The arguments you have made so far haven't proven
to me that you can recognize "quality" when you see it.
(carole)
> > But,
> >what does quality look like in a cubist painting, compared to a classical
> >painting, or an impressionist painting.
(Mdeli)
> As I said, "technique skill craft ideas etc. " These qualities in
> great art are hard to duplicate. As to impressionism, it exists as a
> part of classical painting. It isn't unique to the period of that
> name. The same can be said for abstraction which is an even older form
> of painting. Most artzy fartzy critic go off on long explinatiions
> comparing Mondrian's stripes to Vermeer. I always like to compare
> Pollock's masterpieces to Micheallangelo's drop cloths.
I think in order to be a skilled impressionist painter, one must
have the knowledge of the old masters plus the fully developed visual
perception of color differences, replacing the value variations that were used
by the old masters. Once Augustus John possessed a full range of pigments, he
didn't paint by tonal variations but by the subtle color differences. Which
brought on another problem that Rembrandt didn't have in his day. Tonal
differences are value changes and not as challenging to paint as colored,
atmospheric differences that constantly change. This new color range made it
possible to create moods on canvas that weren't possible before 1880.
> >> All artwork can be compared on the basis of quality regardless of it
> >> origin.
(carole)
> >Right. But for instance, there was only ONE way in which to critique work
of
> >artists such as da Vinci or Michealangelo.
>
> Really?
>
> > Their figures HAD to be of factual
> >representation or they weren't accepted by critics.
>
> Picasso and Matisse's figures are factual in much the same sense. An
> area is recognizable as a hand and can be distinguished from an eye.
I left out the word "accurate". Their figures had to be of accurate factual
representation.
> > These days what is
> >considered to be art of quality does not have to be of accurate factual
> >representation.
(Mdeli)
> Look at the abstraction in a fine Persian miniature painted around
> 1600. Abstraction is not confined to "these days." El Greco,
> Tintoretto and Simon Martini aren't factual. The abstraction of a rug
> in a corner of Vermeer is finer in quality than most anything today.
If abstraction was around for so long why do you suppose it didn't become a
Movement until the early 1900's?
What does a quality cubist painting look like?
car...@sonic.net
(carole)
<continued> My finger was resting on the trigger button and I accidently sent
my last post before I was finished. Here is the rest...
> > But he was not satisfied and was searching for
> >something different. It was with THAT portrait that Picasso decided never
> >to
> >work with a live model again.
(Mdeli)
> Good point. He couldn't work from the model so he resorted to Photos
> and projection. However even these aids his portraiture got even worse
> and there are plenty of examples.
(carole)
> > He had re-painted Gertrude's face from memory
> >and preferred the "mask-like' quality.
(Mdeli)
> I call it second rate student quality.
So far you've supplied me with a lot of subjective opinions and nothing that
convinces me that his work is crap.
> > I'm not entirely sure if he was happy
> >with the finished portrait or not. He was striving for creating a head
> >that would say what he wanted it to say, but the forms he had expressed
> >weren't the ones that he wanted to express. It is quite clear to me that
> >his intentions
> >with this portrait was to solve a new problem.
(Mdeli)
> And how do you know all this?
Gertrude Stein wrote of her experience posing for Picasso and noted what his
intentions were.
(carole)
> > It was the problem of African
> >or Oriental art on which he wanted others to speculate. This was the time
> >that African and Oriental art started to become a huge influence
> >in Picasso's work. It was that "mask-like" quality of Gertrude's portrait
> >that spurred it.
(Mdeli)
> Even if all this were true it doesn't make the portrait any better
> does it?
(carole)
No, did I say it did? You asked me to explain what Picasso's intentions were
and I did that.
(carole)
> >No, I don't think "crappy' was something he was aiming for. I think not
> >everyone is going to understand why his art is considered "great art".
>
> I do understand why. I just don't agree.
Is it possible that you just *think* you know why?
> > If one
> >doesn't like his art, there is a lot to "give up" in order to appreciate
> >it's existence as something valuable. Some people can't do that.
>
> Sounds like religion; "you don't know what you are giving up if you
> don't believe in my god."
I'm not religious. I know that there is something vital for me to give up
with Jeff Koons for me to be okay with HIS existence in the art world. It
doesn't mean that I have to like his work or what he's about.
> >I think we, as artists, need to totally believe in what we're creating,
> >otherwise what value are we getting from our work?
>
> I suspect every artist good or bad believes this to some degree, so
> what.
I know a number of artists that don't totally believe in what they're creating
and continue to work as if it makes no difference. Sometimes it's easier to
create what is known to be popular for the sake of having an income.
(carole)
> >> > Tamara's portraits are not crude
> >> >in the least. How can one honestly compare the two when their
> >> >intentions were
> >> >obviously different?
> >> YOU JUST COMPARED THEM.
> >No, I differentiated them. In no way did I compare them. Give me two
> >impressionist paintings, or two classical paintings, or two abstract
> >paintings or two surrealist paintings, etc.. and I'll compare them.
> In other word its OK to DIFFERENTIATE Picasso from Holbein but I'm not
> allowed to compare them.
You're allowed to do whatever you want. I prefer to compare paintings of the
same genre.
(Mdeli)
> >> Now you can go one step further and ask whether you prefer crappy
> >> crude to not crappy crude and compare further.
> >It depends on the context. <grin>
> >That would make for an interesting movement, "crappy crude", it has a nice
> >ring to it. <grin>
> Its already antiquated. Its most of the stuff in the modern section of
> museums. Its fashionable. You are behind the times.
There was an approach called "Bad Painting" that began in the 70's that was
full of expressive crude paint handling. I believe that Philip Guston was a
big influence. And in my neck of the woods, the "Bay Area Figurative" artists
made their contribution to "Bad Painting". And then there are the "Funk"
artists. Is that what you're talking about when you say crappy crude?? "Bad
Painting" was more known as an approach and not a movement. If you're saying
that "Crappy Crude" is a legitimate movement, please fill me in on the
details, because I certainly don't want to be behind the times. Maybe I've
been enjoying the solitude and rural contentment of my studio for too long.
> I might add that you are one of the few here willing to discuss
> serious points..
> This is unlike the usual patronizing and psychobabble coming from the
> artzy fartzies here, who address any contradiction to their
> conformist beliefs as some sort of religious blasphemy.
I'll take that as a compliment.