You can't take kids anywhere these days!

[Ilovetoolsteel]

To my mind art is something that requires talent, an expression or capturing of expression that no one else can do. Da Vinci created art. Rembrandt created art. Even Dhali in all his weirdness created art. Not everyone can create a Mona Lisa. Not everyone can paint The Night Watch. Pretty much anyone can blob some paint on canvas or nail a rope to a board. Most "modern art" is simply slick marketing sold to the credulous as they desperately attempt to justify their banal existence.

Talent is mechanical, it is hand eye coordination. In a few short evenings I could teach any person on these forums to draw. Give me a semester I will have you drawing well. There are hundreds of thousands of talented people who never in their lives create a piece of art. What can't be taught is how to convey a complex idea or feeling with an image. There is no formula for that. You need to view the painting in the context of what inspired these paintings.

You mention Salvador Dali as an example of art, If there ever was an example of slick marketing Dali was the master. In the last half of his career he manufactured "art" He would sign a contract to produce a half dozen lithographic prints and he would bring an old sketch book down and let the printer reproduce a half dozen images from the sketchbook then he would sign sign the images after they were created with no input from him. Sometimes if he couldn't wait he would just sign the paper before the prints were printed on it.

The idea that Helen Frankenthaler, who is considered to be the greatist living female American artist, A woman who has been making art since the 1940's is running a scam by putting blobs of paint on canvas is so profoundly ignorant it's insulting.

 

[gallowglass]

I would say the great lack of art education in America, coupled with the great arrogance of the worldwide Art community, is responsible for the general public disdain for non-representational ( AKA "modern") art.

Most curators, artistic parasites, and media types fail to ever explain the roots of the movement, or its' technical challenges. To most people, a Picasso is a waste. When people see that Picasso's early works rival any great master's in their technical and traditional brilliance, and then see how he progressed in response to the idea streams of the early twentith century, they get it.

There is also this "anything is art" philosophy that supports the shark carcasses in tanks, the random rope on the wall, etc. The art community must learn to balance tolerence and appriciation for the radical with some sort of artistic discrimination. There must be some sort of technical and creative process beyond the random form to justify it's labeling as a "work of art". I feel that the arrogence of Warhol and his special place in the counter culture was particulalry damaging in this regard.

For those with some time on their hands, Peter Watson's incredible The Modern Mind offers a stunningly lucid account of the birth of modern art as a reaction and a natural response to the scientific world view and the rise of imaging technology.

Take Care,
Jeff

 

[gallowglass]

Triton,

"Most "modern art" is simply slick marketing sold to the credulous as they desperately attempt to justify their banal existence."

I know exactly how you feel.

Every time I see a Thomas Kinkade painting ---poster/lithograph/mousepad/mug/tee shirt/book mark/notepad/screensaver/calander/cushion/candle/credit card ---I want to hurl into someone's collectable, limited edition and serial numbered Thomas Kinkade's Cristmas in Boston trash can.

Anybody remember Maxfield Parish? That's modern art anybody can like.

Take Care,
Jeff

 

[Triton]

Triton, I take it you're not fond of "modern" art? Neither am I. However, lobbing buckets of paint off rooftops or wrapping boulders in a desert with pink vinyl sheeting qualifies more as "performance" art. I know that art appreciation is very subjective, but I really can't follow any kind of relationship from that to the quite personal work of Jackson Pollock or Dali?

Oh well. Back to my Etch-A-Sketch.

My point was that just because something isn't easily reproduced doesn't mean that it takes any talent.

 

[Triton]

Talent is mechanical, it is hand eye coordination. In a few short evenings I could teach any person on these forums to draw. Give me a semester I will have you drawing well. There are hundreds of thousands of talented people who never in their lives create a piece of art. What can't be taught is how to convey a complex idea or feeling with an image. There is no formula for that. You need to view the painting in the context of what inspired these paintings.

You mention Salvador Dali as an example of art, If there ever was an example of slick marketing Dali was the master. In the last half of his career he manufactured "art" He would sign a contract to produce a half dozen lithographic prints and he would bring an old sketch book down and let the printer reproduce a half dozen images from the sketchbook then he would sign sign the images after they were created with no input from him. Sometimes if he couldn't wait he would just sign the paper before the prints were printed on it.

The idea that Helen Frankenthaler, who is considered to be the greatist living female American artist, A woman who has been making art since the 1940's is running a scam by putting blobs of paint on canvas is so profoundly ignorant it's insulting.

I don't think you are suggesting that Da Vinci, Rembrandt and even Dhali (although I didn't know that bit about his marketing... it sounds like he found a few of the credulous himself) weren't able to convey anything in their efforts? I'm pretty sure you weren't suggesting that. Those people mastered the technical and the "emotional appeal." Now contrast that to someone who blobs some paint on a canvas and claims that it has "emotional appeal."

I'd never heard of Ms. Frankenthaler but for the sake of this discussion I went and looked her and some of her "work" up. If she is considered the greatest living American female artist it does indeed say something about the state of American Art... but nothing positive.

There was a man not an artist but rather a showman. He had this saying about suckers and how often they enter the world...