# Art confessions--"I don't see what's so great about..." **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 30, 2007, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026 "2007-06-30T10:00:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/81 "2007-07-02T20:49:26Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] Not at all! He’s easily one of the most popular, deeply respected public figures on the boards. Perhaps only President Bush himself, or possibly Anne Coulter, is more widely revered by the posters of the SDMB. [/QUOTE] Oh, wow! Really? I had no idea that we were talking about true painting royalty! ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/82 "2007-07-02T20:52:26Z")
[QUOTE=Roadfood] Wow, I could go on for pages on this one. Citizen Cane E.T. Titanic Harry Potter Lord of the Rings The Rolling Stones Motzart Beethovan Nirvana The Mona Lisa The Great Gatsby Pablo Picasso Poetry But I’ll add a new one: Philosophy and Philosophers. It’s just mental masturbation, totally meaningless in any way. Some guy sits around contemplating his navel for a few years and then extolls on the meaning of life. What the hell makes his ramblings any more meaningful than anyone else’s? Ooooo, what is the nature of reality? Cosmic, man. Are we really here, or just disembodied brains in a jar? How can I know if you’re real or just a figment of my imagination? Who the hell cares, and what difference does it make that you pontificate on questions that are totally unaswerable anyway? If I can touch it, it’s real. If I can talk to you, you’re real. Beyond that is just, as I said, mental masturbation; it might make you feel good, but it’s completely unproductive. [/QUOTE] You may face a veritable shitstorm over the comment on philosophy, but they, like space travel and physics are all keys on finding out who we are and how we got here. That’s another thing about a lot of these lists, though. Sometimes it’s a matter of one person either not “getting it” (the convenient excuse, especially for people that are pro-whateveritis) or just simply not relating to it. There’s really no shame in other, and different people like different things. I’m cool with differences. By the way, a lot of network TV goes over my head. It could be that American Idol and Grey’s Anatomy just simply aren’t geared towards me. ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/83 "2007-07-02T21:07:47Z")
Since we’re in confession mode, I have to admit that I can’t read poetry. I don’t mind listening to it, sometimes, but in terms of reading it myself I might as well be blind. It’s completely over my head. Also, I’ve never been able to finish any work by Dickens. And I can’t stand Delacroix’s [“Liberty Guiding the People”](http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/delacroix/liberte/liberty.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![valleyofthedolls](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a4c791/32.png) [@valleyofthedolls](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/valleyofthedolls)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/84 "2007-07-02T21:14:49Z")
[QUOTE=Least Original User Name Ever] I might be able to help with Mrs. Dalloway. What, precisely, is the beef with it, or is it a general “I dun get it” beef? [/QUOTE] Less the novel and more the use of stream of consciousness. It’s just not my favorite writing technique (see also The Sound and the Fury). I should have added Styron’s Lie Down in Darkness, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/85 "2007-07-02T21:24:31Z")
Can’t stand Leo Tolstoy. I’ve tried to get through his books and fallen asleep snoring over each one. Can’t stand Virginia Woolf, either, or Kate Chopin. I’ve tried to work my way through Kafka, but my brain usually ends up dribbling out of my ears… ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/86 "2007-07-02T21:29:15Z")
Hunter S. Thompson. Have never been able to get more than two chapters into Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Ditto on Mrs. Dalloway. And I’ll go one further and say The Hours (the film version). I guess I am afraid of Virginia Woolf. (Though incidentally, that play/film I find to be very enjoyable.) ---
**Author:** ![xanthous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/53a042/32.png) [@xanthous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xanthous)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/87 "2007-07-02T21:58:49Z")
[QUOTE=pprgrl] [Jacques-Louis David](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques-Louis_David). I’ve seen tons of his stuff at the Louvre, and it’s not bad, I just don’t get the appeal. [/QUOTE] I always thought [Death of Marat](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/a/aa/20060730231541!Death_of_Marat_by_David.jpg) was bitchin’ ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/88 "2007-07-02T22:03:24Z")
[QUOTE=plnnr] We’ve begun getting a new station on the dish lately called Ovation, which is devoted to the “Arts.” Last week they had a series of one hour programs about various artists and Pollak was one of those featured. Like both of you, I had previously just kind of scratched my head and said, “Well, that doesn’t look too hard - so I guess I could technically do it. But what’s he trying to say?” Unfortunately, I didn’t feel any more enlightened at the end of the hour in that regard. Pollack had little in the way initial training or talent (he was no child prodigy). Instead, he convinced himself early on that he wanted to be an artist, a GREAT artist, and then through sheer force of will he learned his craft. His first works were really derivative and he didn’t meet with any sort of success. He was loner, an alcoholic, and lots of people described him as socially retarded. He wasn’t able to play the art game to the extent others were and his works didn’t make much impact at first. Then he made his first drip paintings and things took off for him. He got written up in Time and Life and was called “The Greatest Painter of Modern Times” or some such. He then felt he had to live up that the hype, couldn’t do it , and slowly drank himself into oblivion. He ended up killing both himself in an automobile accident (some people think it was suicide, others just an accident). He was the very model of the Tortured Artist and while I have a little more respect for his technique (he actually went to great lenghts to get each drip, line, and splatter just “right”), his works still don’t resonate with me. [/QUOTE] I guess he was sincere then, but still, it doesn’t make sense to me. Insofar as art is a form of expression, I think it fails if it requires (or is wholly dependent upon) attendant explanation of _what I’m supposed to be seeing, thinking, feeling when I look at the work_ ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/89 "2007-07-02T22:06:52Z")
[QUOTE=xanthous] I always thought [Death of Marat](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/a/aa/20060730231541!Death_of_Marat_by_David.jpg) was bitchin’ [/QUOTE] It certainly shows skill in both natural and romantic shading, but there’s something I don’t like about it. I guess the placement and angles of the objects in the painting is just too distracting from the material: it doesn’t really draw your eye to the death. I never disliked the painting and I still can’t quite place why I don’t like it. I guess this can count as my Art Confession. ---
**Author:** ![TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/51bf81/32.png) [@TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/90 "2007-07-02T22:31:47Z")
[QUOTE=The Cocky Watchman] I don’t get the enormous, best-albums-of-the-past-twenty-years reverence accorded to **radiohead**. Maybe not so much right now, but a few years back it was common to see OK Computer and KidA bandied about at the top of best album of all time lists. They’re definitely spoken about as being on a different level, usually in a tone of po-faced solemnity. I don’t get it on a couple of levels. First, their stuff just sounds like an adequate stab at progressive rock for the 00’s to me - Not bad, a bit more interesting than your average indie band, but very pious and anally-retentive. Their first album doesn’t even aspire to adequacy tbh, extremely weak early 90s UK indie fare. Second, given that I completely misunderstand \*\*radiohead \*\*and that everyone else hears clearly what I do not. It still seems an odd, surprising sort of sound to be so successful in the US. I have no problem with whiny, droning music myself, but I wouldn’t have thought it would get mainstream success. Someone mentioned Pink Floyd upthread, another desperately overrated band IMO, but at least I can understand their appeal. [/QUOTE] I’m another “doesn’t get into Radiohead” person, but I have a workable theory as to why; I think that Radiohead is one of those bands that sounds really impressive and interesting to people that don’t listen to anything more challenging than standard rock music, but sounds completely boring if you listen to stuff that’s far weirder and denser on a daily basis. I’m sure _Kid A_ is totally mindblowing if you’ve never listened to electronic music, and _Ok Computer_ is totally craaaazy if you’ve never listened to Magazine or something like that. I wish the band would get back to writing songs, which they haven’t really done since _The Bends_ ( a great record!). ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/91 "2007-07-02T23:59:52Z")
[QUOTE=VCO3] I wish the band would get back to writing songs, which they haven’t really done since _The Bends_ ( a great record!). [/QUOTE] Yeah, I kind of felt that after that album, they left us hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. You know, despite our pleadings to the contrary. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/92 "2007-07-03T01:46:15Z")
[QUOTE=Freezair SilverEye] I think _The Merchant of Venice_ will always be my favorite Shakespeare play. _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ is a good close second, though. [/QUOTE] I’ll go with “Taming of the Shrew.” And Shaw wrote better plays, anyway. My fave Shaw play is not “Pygmalion” it’s “Man and Superman.” ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/93 "2007-07-03T01:50:43Z")
How about modern dance? As a true dance lover in all its forms, I just don’t get modern dance. Butcher beautiful classical pieces to make your own so-called “vision”? Yes, I do take it a little personally. Why do you ask? ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/94 "2007-07-03T02:14:45Z")
My people! I like a lot of poetry… Emily Dickinson, Audre Lord, Langston Hughes. But the stuff that passes for “spoken word” nowadays? Pretentious, poser crap. I get that pulsing vein in my forehead when Def Poetry Jam comes on. Every emo kid thinks they have something to say worth sharing. Truth is, most of us just aren’t that interesting outside our own heads. So shut the fuck up already and stop torturing the public! Except for Beau Sia and Mos Def. Those cats definitely can rhyme and flow. I agree with **VCO3** about post-_The Bends_ Radiohead. Shame really, because they had what Oasis had for a few years, only with the creativity to keep it going. Jonny Greenwood could have been the next great British guitar hero. They have a new album out, I don’t even notice. (Though I think “There There” from Hail to the Thief was a great single.) Amnesiac and Kid A were complete crap. Never got the Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits love. Shut the fuck up, the both of you! Dylan, I get. And his voice isn’t bad on some of his songs… and his songs sung by other artists are brilliant. I had a friend slip me a Leonard Cohen tribute album with artists I like, such as R.E.M., and I thought it was absolute shite. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/95 "2007-07-03T02:28:01Z")
[QUOTE=valleyofthedolls] Less the novel and more the use of stream of consciousness. It’s just not my favorite writing technique (see also The Sound and the Fury). I should have added Styron’s Lie Down in Darkness, as well. [/QUOTE] Ah. That certainly will turn some people off. I completely understand. ---
**Author:** ![ZebraShaSha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/eada6e/32.png) [@ZebraShaSha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZebraShaSha)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/96 "2007-07-03T02:45:15Z")
[QUOTE=VCO3] I’m another “doesn’t get into Radiohead” person, but I have a workable theory as to why; I think that Radiohead is one of those bands that sounds really impressive and interesting to people that don’t listen to anything more challenging than standard rock music, but sounds completely boring if you listen to stuff that’s far weirder and denser on a daily basis. I’m sure _Kid A_ is totally mindblowing if you’ve never listened to electronic music, and _Ok Computer_ is totally craaaazy if you’ve never listened to Magazine or something like that. I wish the band would get back to writing songs, which they haven’t really done since _The Bends_ ( a great record!). [/QUOTE] “Radiohead completely changed the face of rock music. They made everyone re-evaluate just what music was and is. It came from another planet.” I’ve heard some form of that for as long as I have known about indie music. And it would have been true. Would have, if Radiohead existed in 1965. But really, completely changed rock music? How? Made some slightly esoteric stuff a more viable option for song writers? Maybe. Just don’t get it.. ---
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/97 "2007-07-03T03:55:08Z")
I don’t have a clue as to why John Waters has a fan base. ---
**Author:** ![ZebraShaSha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/eada6e/32.png) [@ZebraShaSha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZebraShaSha)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/98 "2007-07-03T04:04:01Z")
[QUOTE=Lakai] I don’t have a clue as to why John Waters has a fan base. [/QUOTE] It’s not because his films are good. It’s not even because his films suck, a la Ed Wood. It is because, if you can endure Pink Flamingos, you want to tell the entire world that you sat through every part. People who want other people to realize how much they can endure visually clump together like grass on a dog shit stick and it snow balls from there. **Anaamika** , I seem to be one person who truly like modern dance. Ever been to a real performance? That may or may not color your perception of such. I’ve seen a high school - albeit an arts high school - performance, and it bordered on crap. I went to a Limon production and was completely enthralled. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/99 "2007-07-03T04:05:28Z")
[QUOTE=ZebraShaSha] “Radiohead completely changed the face of rock music. They made everyone re-evaluate just what music was and is. It came from another planet.” I’ve heard some form of that for as long as I have known about indie music. And it would have been true. Would have, if Radiohead existed in 1965. But really, completely changed rock music? How? Made some slightly esoteric stuff a more viable option for song writers? Maybe. Just don’t get it.. [/QUOTE] I find comments like that hilarious, because the bands who really did change the face of rock music did it without alienating three-quarters of the audience. I remember reading an interview with Jonny Greenwood where he said he asked fans to send him the weirdest, most obscure chord fingerings. That’s not how you change music. The 'Head are clearly very talented musicians who are just smart enough to really do innovative things, but a little too clever for their own good. Remember how U2 and The Smiths changed the face of rock music? People actually enjoyed it as it happened! Radiohead lost the plot, which is a shame really, because they really could have changed rock music. All the pretentious gits I know who have Kid A or Amnesiac rave about it, but I rarely see them playing it. Now, I can’t go more than a few weeks without hearing XTC’s _Black Sea_ or The Smiths’ _Meat Is Murder_. Those albums sound like they came from another planet, but not the least bit pretentious. I think they were a little afraid of becoming U2 Mk II and took the oddball route. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/100 "2007-07-03T05:35:02Z")
[QUOTE=ZebraShaSha] It’s not because his films are good. It’s not even because his films suck, a la Ed Wood. It is because, if you can endure Pink Flamingos, you want to tell the entire world that you sat through every part. People who want other people to realize how much they can endure visually clump together like grass on a dog shit stick and it snow balls from there. [/QUOTE] Actually, i think one of the problems is that too many people seem to believe that _Pink Flamingos_ constitutes the entirety of John Waters’ oeuvre, and that gross site gags are his only contribution to film. I don’t expect everyone to like him—and i don’t like all his work—but much of the criticism appears to rest more of his reputation and on a few particularly famous scenes than on any familiarity with his whole body of work. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026.md?page=6)