BBC news online, or is it the onion in disguise?!

The BBQ Pit
601

You’re speaking anecdotally here, I was hoping someone had conducted actual surveys on the subject. But now here’s the $100,000 question - let us assume that you’re correct, and that education allows art analysis with more accuracy and depth - is that better? Does a deeper analysis have more value, in an absolute sense? (It may be more valuable to you, for instance - but that’s not the point.) I suppose that question is a kind of trap.

Your first two sentences here reflect the problem I have with art “society”. I hope you’re just using the terms in an ironic sense.

602

Not all that big. For twelve pages, lissener’s been saying “I see something there.” You’ve been essentially saying “No you don’t.” Corrected for your abrasive style, what you meant was “No I don’t”, but you can’t blame others for interpreting the other way.

But truly, people get different things out of art. Why is this an issue? Do you find it surprising? Put another way, so what?

603

What, you want to quantify art appreciaton? OK, sure. An uneducated person will have 6 points of appreciation for a Mondrian, but an educated person will score a whopping 14. Is that the sort of answer you’re looking for?

Of course ironic, and also in a language you can understand. It was, after all, you who brought up the snobbery issue, not I. I don’t make those sorts of distinctions, but apparently you do. Just talking to you in your own language, dude. If you choose to get offended by it, then knock yourself out.

604

Wow. … Just wow. you’ve almost entirely missed the point.

If it was as simple as this, then this thread wouldn’t even be here.

605

Pfffffffffffft. Total non-issue. Find an activity that isn’t more enjoyable when one knows more about it. I know there are tons of people who get more out of baseball than I do - to me it’s kind of meaningless, but that’s not to say additional meaning doesn’t exist. Cripes - sex is better with knowledge than without (although the learning curve’s a little different).

BTW, here’s how becoming an artist has been described (I suspect the same process applies to a lot of other fields):

Unconscious Incompetence (hint: this is where you are as a view of art, CG)
Conscious Incompetence
Conscious Competence
Unconscious Competence

Also, re: interpretation of art. Have to admit I didn’t read every post (one of my babies has been fussing) so this may be a repeat.

Artists learn how to analyze artwork. They do this by studying it, discussing it with peers, listening to more educated viewers, doing their own and seeing what other people have to say, etc. Analysis is a practice that can be learned. The consensus is never 100%, but it’s reasonably close. Just like how we never agree completely on movies, but can reach accord in regards to quality.

Interpretation is another matter. Most artists (though not all) don’t mind if someone chooses to interpret their art in a different way, and are delighted when a viewer brings something new to the seeing. Because interpretation is a two-way street; the viewer’s assumptions play a large role.

It’s not a giant Where’s Waldo game, where you’re being tricked into picking the “wrong” answer. You may run across pretentious art snobs who behave otherwise, but so what? That’s just like hating a sport because of drunken fans in the audience.

The only wrong choice is to close your mind, which is what you’re doing. Art is about expanding possibilities, not eliminating them.

606

Nope. A simple yes or no will suffice. Was this just a flip reply, or do you intend to answer yes?

If you meant them ironically, no offense is taken.

607

Largely because I have no idea what point you’re trying to make. In 13 pages, all I’ve really gotten from you is “Modern art sucks, and pretentious snobs are suckers.” Stated a hundred different ways. If you have a point other than that, would you please just make it?

608

Basketball isn’t more enjoyable with knowledge. For me. Football isn’t more enjoyable with knowledge. For me. Do you see what you’re missing here?

Ha, and ha again, I say. While some movies receive nigh-universal critical acclaim, a great number fall into the 70-30 percent doldrums. Hardly accord. Check rottentomatoes.com, which correlates critic’s opinions. Of the ten movies listed in the little sidebar for current and upcoming releases, fully half fall between 30%-70% approval.

Most assuredly they do. And yet, when I interpret a piece as meaningless, this open-mindedness you claim to value vanishes in a flurry of shouts of ‘ignorance’.

609

I still don’t have straight answers to a number of my questions. Particularly the one last listed here:

610

It was a flip way of saying a serious thing. Honestly, how would you quantify appreciation? To the best of my knowledge, there is no instrument that can measure it. So anecdotal is the best you’re going to get. But considering the subject matter, I think anecdotal is plenty good enough anyway. After all, we’re dealing in subjectives.

But since you’re asking for an absolute answer, I’ll give you one. Yes, being more educated on a subject increases your enjoyment of it. Most of the time, but certainly not always.

Let’s leave art for a second and talk about music, since I know it better. Since I’ve studied it, I can hear things in it that most lay people will not. I may hear the closed harmony of the violins, which are doubled by the flutes in thirds that give them more roundness. I may hear the subtle irony of the Aolean cadance, and appreciate the skill it took to write that. You might just think it sounds pretty. Have I gotten more enjoyment out of it than you? Probably. Has NASA come up with an instrument to verify this? No.

In the past, I always listened to orchestral music without paying much attention to the orchestrations. Then last year I orchestrated an opera. It was a new skill for me, and I learned a great deal. I learned about the many pitfalls involved. I learned about tonal balance, coloration effects, transparency of sound. And I learned that these things are difficult to achieve. And now I can’t listen to music in the same way any more. There is an extra dimension, and I’m futher wowed by what the composer accomplished.

So to answer your question, Yes.

611

No.

Gee, that was easy!

612

Originally Posted by Bippy the Beardless
CandidGamera which of these two positions is closest to your own.

a) Abstract art has no value, therefore it is meaningless to me.

b) I can find no value in abstract art and it is meaningless to me.

This is the problem, you fail to see that a) is rude and condesending, whilst b) is a polite expression of a personal view.
CandidGamera is an obtuse unlistening person.
is NOT THE SAME as
I find CandidGamera to be obtuse and unlistening.

If you cannot see the difference then you will often come off as a rude boor in communicating with others.

613

No. If you wanted to criticize a specific piece, that would be one thing. As I already said, I might even agree with you. There’s plenty of work endorsed by the art establishment (meaning New York critics) that I think is really stupid.

What you said is that there’s nothing more going on in “abstract” art, there’s no “structure”, because it doesn’t look like the subject it purports to depict. Well, you’re wrong. You don’t get it. Looking like the subject isn’t the point and never was.

There is structure and visual language in all (good) art, just like there are rules in football. You may not be able to detect it, but it’s there; you granted that you can deduce the rules of football pretty easily. Well, some of us can deduce the structure of art pretty easily. You can’t see it? You’re the one missing it.

And whether art is “abstract” or “realistic”, artists are using known and taught guidelines for communication and structure. Fine artists use them, advertisers use them, photojournalists use them. Politicians use them. You use them. It’s a whole big visual world and they’re all linked.

Fine artists, especially the avante garde ones whose work is “on the cutting edge”, take a specific point or principle and push it to its limit. Taken out of context it might be difficult to understand, but understanding is possible if you want to try.

614

I didn’t say I couldn’t see the different. They’re quite different. I said that it was a false dichotomy - which means I chose option c).

615

Which wasn’t what I asked. Not exactly. My question had nothing to do with enjoyment - it was about value.

616

Okay, perhaps it’s time for a position summary. Devoid of the smart-alec quips.

Abstract Art, like everything else, has no objective value.

Abstract Art has no subjective value to me, and that’s not going to change with education. Why do I believe this? Well, I outlined the reasons before, but it boils down to three main points.

One, my aesthetic sense just doesn’t resonate with non-representational paintings. It doesn’t resonate much with representational ones, either, for that matter.

Secondly, there’s no concrete meaning to an abstract painting. There’s the artist’s intent, and the half-dozen interpretations of the various observers, and even two people with the same art education can disagree, and everyone’s still correct. The word for this, I suppose, is ambiguous. I dislike ambiguity. I try (but do not always succeed, apparently) to write and speak with clarity.

Lastly, the ‘fake’ factor. lissener protested my use of extreme examples, but as a fan of the reductio ad absurdum, I enjoy mentioning the elephant-savant. No, Miller, I don’t believe that elephants have an aesthetic sense, and to convince me otherwise, you’re going to need to show me scientific studies. But we don’t have to use the elephant, whose art was produced without communicative or aesthetic intent, and apparently accidentally follows the guidelines of good use of color and space. An artist conversant in those guidelines is perfectly capable of producing a work that follows those guidelines, but which he produced purely mechanically. (e.g. : ‘There needs to be a little more red here, or the colors are off-balance.’).

What does it then say about those who see the painting produced in that manner, and who begin to read interpretations into it? Are they stupid, or ignorant? No. But they have been fooled - fooled by their own assumptions and expectations. The work before them isn’t a work of genius - it’s the work of a cynical or tired artist blindly following the set of guidelines he learned to the point of instinct, without feeling. Are their interpretations any less valid because of that? I’d say no - that a lack of intent on the artist’s part does not negate the individual’s perception of something there - but by the same token, the presence of an intent does not negate my perception of nothing there.

I think that covers the high points. I’ll see if I need to sweep up a few more points of contention a little later.

617

That sounds very much like a) to me :wink:

618

Bullshit. Food has the objective value of preventing me from dying a slow and painful death.

That’s your problem, and it certainly isn’t anything most people would argue about. And it’s nothing anybody would argue about for nigh on twenty pages. Nobody really blames you for this, in fact. We’re all different.

This is devolving into non sequiturs and you mistaking your own interpretation
for some kind of objective reality. Again, just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean nobody can.

Again, just because you cannot handle the concept of elephants having an artistic sense doesn’t mean they, in fact, cannot. You must stop making the mistake of confusing your perception of reality with what’s actually going on.

The only one who’s been fooled here is you. You have been fooled by your own expectations and prejudices, and you have put the blinders on yourself so effectively nobody will ever be able to remove them. Not even you.

Frankly, you have no fucking idea what anyone else feels or fails to feel. You cannot know the mind of another, you pompous moron.

619

… sorry… with the rest sounding like saying
and artists sometimes exploit the public by producing low value works and charging a fortune for them.
Which I think is true of almost any performer, from artist to computer programmer.

620

You reject a very basic premise of my line of reasoning. If you cannot see that value is inherently subjective - and you make an unwitting acknowledgment of such in your own statement - then there is nothing productive to be gained from discussing the matter with you.