Kandinsky had circles and triangles. I recognize those. It’s still just an ugly mess requiring little to no effort.
If I create something, having had no defined goal at the beginning, and having had no limitations on my efforts (such as, for instance ‘must vaguely resemble the subject’) - when I’m done, what have I achieved? A doodle.
Ah, thank you. They should’ve stopped around then. Starry Night is a wonderful piece.
Piet Mondrian.
He too has some interesting realistic paintings. I had no idea he did more representational work, but last week when I was at the Art Institute of Chicago, I found one of these paintings in with the more familiar stuff.
This is the work he’s most well-known for.
This and this are examples of some of the work he’s lesser known for. (The second one is the one in the Art Institute and, funny enough, seems to have been taken at a ChiDope. What a coincidence. It’s smackfu’s page.)
Crap, hit “Submit” instead of “Preview”.
Anyway, my point was that just because a work of art has no apparent structure to you doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have structure. To take Pollack as an example: what initially appears to be a random mess of paint drippings actually has a fractal nature. There’s self-similarity in the pattern of drippings from the large scale (over the entire canvas) to the small scale (an individual dribble). The drippings are most definitely not random. This bears up when you compare Pollack’s paintings to other, similar but lesser works that are non-fractal. They both appear to be a random paint droppings, but the Pollack paintings have a certain quality that makes them stand out.
I suspect you and I are using different definitions of structure.
Has it ever occurred to you that after a few centuries of “Must look lik ‘x’ or the King will be displeased” artists got a little bored & decided to experiment further? Believe it or not, they didn’t do it just to piss you off.
Wow. I’d hate to live in your world. THe aggressiveness of your stance–why not just a bemused curiosity?–speaks of other issues dude. Not everyone sees everything the same way; it’s wacked to get so defensive about it.
That’s the one. Thank you. It’s the most banal piece of art that I have ever seen, and I am baffled as to why anyone would claim it took technical skill.
It makes me sad that you insist on being so close-minded and ignorant, but if you choose to live in a hole, it’s your loss, not mine.
I must admit a morbid curiousity - just exactly who has this “structure” quality you’re so crazy about? I’ve taken it to mean sound and sturdy composition. Whatever are you referring to?
Exactly. But these artists did indeed have a predefined goal in mind as to what they wanted to achieve.
You think it’s an ugly mess. Many disagree.
Kandinsky’s paintings had well-defined goals. I’ve seen many of his pre-compositional sketches and seen how his painting ideas had evolved from a black and white scribble of forms, to an initial sketch painting, to the final product. The choices involved were very deliberate and intentional. You cannot create work of this quality. I guarantee it. It requires a lot of technique. As one who has tried unsuccessfully many times, believe me, you have to know your medium.
Aggressiveness of my stance? Says the man who nearly exploded when his views on movies were labelled ‘pretentious’? Ooookay. Whatever you say. I think you mistake resolution (or ‘stubbornness’) for aggressiveness.
Okay, it’s clear that you think there some kind of rule that dictates that abstract art mustn’t communicate anything, which is really missing the point.
(On preview I see Jenaroph and others have already tried this, but anyway…)
One thing that artists have noticed over the ages is that scenes have an emotional effect that isn’t necessarily logical. An artist controls the emotional impact of their work (well beyond what it is intrinsic in the subject) by careful use of contrast, colour, proportion, symmetry, etc.
Abstract art takes the observed “rules” of aesthetics and uses them in the absence of a particular subject. That doesn’t mean that nothing from the real world or the artist’s experience finds its way into the work.
Hans Hoffman’s Flight, for example, features a glyphic “bird.” It’s not a painting of a bird, though, it’s a painting about the impuse to fly, and it’s all in the way the line draws the viewer up, what the contrasting colours tell us about the movement of the painting, how the sky and earth differ energetically, etc. It makes you feel something, if you let it.
Too many people piling on the bandwagon to get to you all - I do have to do some work today.
As for point #1 - Yeah, I know. [whisper conspiratorially:] I think there may even be a few of them lurking around this thread.
As for point #2 - While he may have had goals, those goals seem rather short-sighted, as there’s nothing to distinguish the end-product from a random geometric doodle. And quality is in the eye of the beholder - so while I may not be able to produce something that, in your eyes, is up to Kandinsky’s snuff, I may be able to wow the rest of the art world, and I’m certain I can outdo Kandinsky as far as my own assessment of quality goes.
Couldn’t tell it to look at the finished product.
Well, if Mondrian’s de Stijl works are not the definition of rigidly structured and composed art then, well, I don’t know what is.
Mondrian leaves me a little cold, too, but that’s because I don’t like geometrically rigidity in my paintings. His work is extremely left-brained and ordered. He’s practically the very definition of it.
Limitations. Boundaries. Rules. Guidelines. Suggestions. Directions. Goals. Targets. Several other synonyms. Representational art has a biggie, inherent to its nature : the subject. Van Gogh’s Starry Night, for a specific example, represents the artist’s impression of the night sky. And it looks like a stylized night sky. Not a very hard concept to grasp…
Well, if you’re sticking with realism, than compare your work with one of his few representational works, a portrait of his companionGabriel Munter.
I never suggested that aggressiveness of stance is never appropriate. I’m just saying that you’ve chosen to frame a clear case of “I don’t get it, what’s the big deal?” as a case of “It’s all bullshit.” Your grapes seem a tad sour; you seem defensive at being left out of the discussion or something. You seem angry that there’s a whole mode of communication that some people enjoy and you don’t. At any rate, you’re certainly not coming across as a person intelligently and objectively discussing his understanding of art; you come across as a man with an emotionally invested position who’s “defending” it against attackers. I’m just sayin.
