…is that the acceptance of art changes over time. It was decades before van Gogh was recognized as a great artist-many of his earlier works were trashed during his lifetime. The impressionists were not highly thoiught of-untill the 1920’s. In the same way, al lot of what is thought to be great art 9today0 may be headed for the trash heap in 50 years. take that stuff by jackson pollock-I doubt very much that it will be popular in 100 years time. Or marc Chagall-how well is he liked today?
Other artists (like Maxfiled parrish) were immenseley popular in their day, then forgotten, then re-discovered. So, nobody knows what will be popular in the fututre.
Which art critic are you thinking about in particular who has taken that position?
I would bet my entire life savings that Jackson Pollock will be recognized as a great artist 100 years from now. Somebody like Warhol, I could see falling out of favor, Pollock, no way. He works had all the hallmarks of great classic art: solid technique, great composition, a unique vision, and pushing the visual boundaries of the time. No way in hell is Pollock’s work not going to stand up.
Last I checked, very.
That is precisely the point I could not put into words. In every endeavor there are things that separate the great from the hacks. Once you learn them you can improve your own technique or recognize the failure or success of someone else’s. It’s not as subjective as it is objective, but the preferences of one educated person vs another’s still enter into the discussion. It is then that you hear people say things like, “I don’t much care for her choice of material but I can recognize that Carrie Underwood has a pretty good voice.”
And, honest to God, by most objective yardsticks Thomas Kinkade blows chunks.
Youlle need to find an example of this.
Ironically they his paintings must have been publicly viewed enough to be trashed, which means somebody in the art community liked it.
It’s like the old story about everybody hating Stravinski’s Rite of Spring. Actually, the critics generally liked it. It was the public that didn’t like it. The riot is also exagerated.
I’m glad that calmer voices entered the thread to make these excellent points.
Miller, I completely agree with you that sticking to a completely subjective discussion of art is wise in these fora. I did NOT intend (and we can argue all day on whether or not this actually transpired, I’ll take your word that it did) to disparage people merely for saying “art (taste) is subjective”.
Mr. Dibble I’m afraid arguing for the likes of Shakespeare and against Dan Brown (who I’ve never heard of, but I think I know what you mean), wasn’t really the point I was trying to make. So apparently I missed that one, too.
What drew me into the argument was Pricebuy’s initial posting that “Art is purely subjective, it’s about eliciting a response.”
And I think I barged into this thread with both guns blaring, in part because of similar debates we’ve had in the recent and distant past, and in part because my twins have been driving me bananas for a month now and all my anger and frustration had to go somewhere.
Or, it could be that I’m just a bitch.
But this issue of art, of art appreciation, it’s so much more important than whether or not you like me, whether my posting style is persuasive or irritating. I’ll try to strip this down to raw content, and then I’ll leave it alone.
There is more to most museum art than immediately meets the eye. Obviously there is the artist’s biography and sometimes his or her written statement of philosophy or intent. There’s also the historical context of the work, when and why it was created, artistic influences and the political climate. The subject matter might be really significant, too. We know these facts exist, we’ve seen them in books, they’re written in articles and included in the show’s catalogue.
There is also more to most museum art than immediately meets the eye in a strictly visual sense as well. It’s my opinion that many people don’t know this. It’s my opinion that many people look at a painting and see a red apple, and think it’s red because, well, apples are usually red.
Or, they look at a painting (like some of the lousy ones by Thomas Kinkade), see walls and a roof, and say - hey, that’s a recognizable house, it must be a competent painting.
Artists see the world differently. They see color, form, shape, the way these things interact. It’s actually quite dangerous to drive a car, while in an artistic frame of mind, because instead of streets and cars, it’s just all lovely shapes and forms.
Some artists, like Van Gogh, do this intuitively, and express a unique vision in a new and exciting way (which the world may or may not be ready for). Others learn it in school, by studying the vision of artists before them.
So when a painting class goes to a museum to talk about the work, they do so in “formal” terms. They talk a LOT about “composition” (how the various elements in the piece interact), the effect of scale and contrast, texture. They look at technique, at brush strokes (or shoe strokes, depending on the artist). And particularly, they’ll talk about color choices. Why is this area green, or red, or black, and what does that do to the eye, what kind of emotional impact does it have.
When an art student is trying to improve, as Pochacco said, she’ll analyze those elements in her own work. Art students learn through “critiques”, where everyone hangs their latest effort and everyone talks about whether or not the pieces “succeeded”, whether the formal elements that are present support the artist’s intent.
Whether those qualities add up to anything in particular, the “aesthetics” of the piece, “beauty” – sometimes that quality (or the lack of it) is immediately apparent, and sometimes it takes a bit of study to recognize an unusual interpretation of “aesthetically pleasing”. Sometimes an artist’s goal might be just the opposite.
These days, in Western culture, a good art teacher (and not all art teachers are good, not by any stretch) starts out by saying “What were you aiming for?” Not “This is good, this piece sucks, take it down and throw it away.”
In different times, at different places, art was and is taught in other ways.
I’m no master, I’m no genius or expert; but I have done the work that has taught me these things.
So for someone (several someones) to say that their casual glance through a gallery gives them as much meaningful insight about the works present as a careful, studied analysis — it’s insulting, and it’s not true.
Now, whether or not an art expert’s “opinion” has “value” — well, what’s “value”? In 100 years we’ll all be dead, is anyone going to care what one particular person thought? If that person thought a great deal, and wrote about art as a result, saying something new and insightful - hey, their opinion might, concretely, have more value. They might sell some books.
Am I saying that “You can’t call yourself an artist until you impress ME (or the likes of me)”? No. There’s no particular Art Guru whose test has to be passed. That would be like saying there’s a formula, a simple litmus test for “Competent” v. “Incompetent” art.
But there is analysis, and it’s a lot more than just a casual view.
The central point I was trying to make (and apparently missed entirely) is that this deeper, more meaningful view is available to everyone! It’s not just for artists! There is no reason why the public can’t learn about the visual qualities of art and in my opinion the lack of understanding of this issue is criminal. Because that is the POINT of art in the first place - vision. It’s emotional, it’s historical, it’s subjective, it’s also a million other things.
But first, visual art is visual.
And I can’t reduce that to 50 words, or describe it in a million, because if it could be reduced to words it’d be written. It can’t.
Unless you’ve got it intuitively, like Van Gogh, you have to learn to see. And even if you do “get” some artists instinctively, there will be others whose vision will challenge you.
A cigar may be just a cigar, but I’m telling you, a red apple is usually MORE than just a red apple. Here’s an example, and I’ve seen this painting in person so I can tell you the apple is even brighter than shown online. Manet’s “Dejeuner sur l’herbe” is extremely famous and important for a variety of reasons. That red apple in the tree, right in the middle of the canvas, about an inch from the top, that sucker is essential to the piece. It “locks” those images in place. You might not immediately understand what I mean by that, but you could learn.
And in the process of learning that kind of thing, you’d come to understand why “Barn Flour” is a beginner’s painting, and “Sunflowers” is a masterpiece.
Ever since I made my earlier metaphorical example in this thread… I’ve totally been craving corn muffins. Dammit.
He’s the guy who wrote The DaVinci Code. And if you want to talk about something that sucks objectively…
Anyway, I think the contentiousness of this thread arises from the way the two camps approach art. You’re approach seems to be more about “What was the artist trying to say,” whereas mine (and, I think, Priceguy and Roadfood as well) are more concerned with, “What does this work of art say to me?”
How someone reacts to a work of art is a function of what sort of a person they are, of what experiences they’ve had in their life. This is what I mean when I say that all opinions about art are equally valid. When someone says they love Kincaide and hate Picasso (or vice versa) that statement is a reflection on the viewer, not on the work. What a person says about any given work gives us an insight to who they are at that particular moment in their lives. All such views are equally valid, because those views are only applicable to the one person articulating those views, and not to anyone else. And that makes them entirely subjective. Even if their opinion is based on objective criteria, the fact that they use those criteria tells us something about that person, which brings us back to the subjective.
Of course, like I said to pulykamell, all opinions are not equally valuable. Your dissection of why you hate Kincaide was detailed, interesting, and educational. It offered as much insight into who you are, as it did into what Kincaide paints. On the other hand, someone who says they like Kincaide because his paintings “look so pretty,” and can’t elaborate past that, hasn’t really told us much of anything about themselves. But that’s a seperate issue. No one in this thread - heck, on this whole board - would argue that there’s no value in any sort of education, let alone an arts education. But the goal should not be, in my view, to learn why Thomas Kincaide is a bad artist. The goal should be to clearly explain why you think he’s a good artist. If it just so happens that in the course of your education, you decide that he’s really a good artist at all, so much the better. Appearances in this thread to the contrary, I’d be pleased as punch to learn that Thomas Kincaide was never going to sell another one of his goddamned paintings again, and I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in here who much disagreed with me. But if you take a person who says they like a Kincaide painting - well, that’s a perfectly valid opinion, because it tells us something about who that person is at that particular point in their life. If that same person spends the next ten years studying art, and comes back and looks at the same painting and says that it sucks, that’s just as valid as their original opinion, because it tells us something about who that person is at this particular point in their lives.
And to me, that’s what art is all about.
Then they’re not objective. All I’ve been saying. Thank you for finally agreeing with me.
Says who, though? That’s where you lose me. Who is it that defined art such that a consistent sustained treatment of what’s being presented is essential?
No, you are again wrong and failing to see even the simplest aspect of my point. I wrote huge volumes the other day, way, way over-doing it. But you still fail to grasp my one, simple point. I’ll try to be succinct: It’s not about whether I see these qualities such as “same treatment” that you keep refering to. The question is: who decided that “same treatment” has to be one of the criteria by which art is judged? If you use “same treatment” as one of the criteria by which you judge a painting, and I do not, why are you right and I’m wrong?
Ok: In any endeavour that falls under the loose category of “art”, be it painting, sculpture, dance, singing, movies, theater, TV shows, etc. there are wide-ranging disagreements about what is “good” and “bad”, which of two things is “better”, etc. These disagreements exist among the so-called experts in that particular field, as well as among the laymen. One simple example, since someone many postings ago brought up Roger Ebert and movies: I’ve been watching since the very early days of Siskel and Ebert on PBS. True, some movies the two critics agree on. But many they do not. And many of those disagreement are gulfs wide. Roger thinks its one of the best movies of the year, Roeper thinks it’s crap. Such disagrements can only exist when the realm in which they are made are that of opinion and judgement. QED, you’ve been proven wrong.
Because the question of whether a particular player deserves entry into the Hall of Fame is a judgement call, exactly as the question of which painting is better is a judgement call. Far from shooting a hole in my argument, you question here totally supports it.
You, again and as usual, totally mischaracterize and misunderstand what I said about baseball. Please show me where I said that EVERYTHING about baseball is “perfectly objective”. I actually never even said that ANYHING about baseball is perfectly objective, concrete and uniform". What I said was that certain questions, such as whether a runner is safe or not, can be answered objectively without the need for personal opinion and judgement.
Questions in art, such as whether one painting is better than another, cannot in ANY way be answered objectively, the answer MUST come from personal opinion and judgement only.
This explains a lot. Your powers of reading comprehension are on par with your powers of definitional comprehension.
Hello? What is the matter with you, fessie? Why is it that all of the “critical thinking” skills you pride yourself on cease to exist when you are reading my postings?
Ok, show me. Educate me, as you keep saying you’re trying to do. Discuss something about art in these objective terms. I know you think you’ve done that, but as I’ve said over and over (so much so that you’ve taken me to task for posting so much), the so-called objective terms that you’ve used so far are not, in any way, shape or form, anything close to objective. I’m still waiting for a discussion in some terms that really are objective.
Now see, this is a perfect example of where your critical thinking and reading comprehension have not been demonstrated. Please do me just ONE favor: Quote me a passage from one of my numerous postings (and I said quote, not paraphrase) where I said anything even remotely like “in order for art to be good, everyone has to like it.”
I have NEVER said anything like that. What I HAVE said is quite the opposite: there just cannot be any universal, objective “good” art, because the very word “good” requires a subjective judgement.
And yet another who cannot help but mischaracterize one side of this debate. I, and I think the others on my side, have never said anything about the value of an opinion. The closest I think I ever came to that was way back when fessie said that his was an educated opinion, and I responded by saying that it was, nevertheless, still just an opinion. Where have I said that my opinion is just as valuable as his?
What I have said, in more postings than fessie or DianaG have even bothered to read, is that an educated opinion is no more “right” than any other opinion, in matters of art, simply because there is no such thing as “right” and “wrong”.
Is it really so difficult to grasp that concept, and to understand that saying there’s no such thing as right and wrong is not the same as saying that all opinions are equal (in value or otherwise), or that nothing can be good unless everyone likes it?
I am really, really getting tired of having to point out over and over the egregious mischaracterizations of one side of this debate. No one here has ever said anything remotely like this. Why do you folks keep insisting that we have?
Ok, let me see if I can make this plain enough so that even DianaG can understand it:
I do not hold that all art is equally good.
(Sorry, I tried to keep it to all one syllable words, but I couldn’t really say it without slipping that one three syllable one in there.)
Ok? Is that plain enough? Can you people please now stop continually saying that I’m saying that?
What I do hold, and that no one on the other side of this debate has come anywhere close to refuting, is that “good” is purely subjective, at least in the realm of art.
“This painting is good” is meaningless and nonsensical. It is a statement of judgement, and just doesn’t mean anything by itself, there must be some sort of qualifiers in order to make it meaningful.
“I think this painting is good” has meaning. It’s subjective, but has meaning.
“The Legitimate Art World has declared that this painting is good” has meaning. Again, it speaks to the subjective judgement of the L.A.W., but it has meaning.
“That color is blue” has meaning. Nothing else is really required for it to have meaning; it’s not subjectively based. (Yes, I know, we could argue about what particular shade of blue it is, or other such, but it’s still basically an objective statement that doesn’t rely on judgement.
Does anyone really fail to see that distinction? That’s about as simple as I can make it.
Sounds to me like everybody agrees then. Group hug?
Please educate me. Seriously, I’m not trying to bait you here. Tell me what these objective yardsticks are. Fessie couldn’t, maybe you can.
Time Out!
Roadfood, obviously you’re free to continue this debate as long or as thoroughly as you please. Clearly you enjoy doing so. And if you’re reading and responding to this thread in strictly chronological order then perhaps that makes sense.
But I went back and tried to “wipe the slate clean” with a statement that, I hope, will answer all of your questions.
Miller replied by explaining his (your?) view of art in a clear and methodical manner. I found his post absolutely fascinating. He opened MY eyes to some truths I had never considered, and they explain a great number of things to me (including many of my experiences as an art student and artist).
As I acknowledged to him privately (I thought for sure this sucker was dead), “the criteria” absolutely DO change and evolve over time, as people change - in fact, one of the benchmarks for a masterpiece is that it survives and is valued by later generations.
And sometimes criteria change for the worse, as documented in The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe.
What Miller said about our use of criteria being self-revelatory is absolutely true – WHICH of the formal elements is truly “most important”? With some paintings, that’s a very subjective question. Even among beginning students, critiques aren’t about reaching complete agreement every time.
Further, my own criteria has changed dramatically over the years. There was plenty I didn’t understand in Painting 101, because I wasn’t ready for it. So I went back and took it again, later. And again.
And who said it? I’ve read pretty much every posting in this thread, and I don’t recall anyone saying that. And why on Earth should it be insulting? Someone who you a priori decide is not as educated as yourself, dares to say that they got as much meaningful insight out of something as you did, and you feel insulted? I really and truly don’t get that. Lastly, how do you know it’s not true, unless you sit down and discuss your individual insights?
You do have a rather strange way of trying to get your point across. “No, you’re wrong, it is TOO objective!” bears little resemblance to “this deeper, more meaningfrul view is available to everyone.”
Hey, thank you for finally admitting the one thing I’ve been spending volumes trying to get across to you.
Sorry, sometimes my eyes glaze over when people go on and on and on and…
Seriously dude… I’m surprised that your brain hasn’t fallen into the cracks of your keyboard like Narcissus into the pool.
My eyes glazed over somewhere around the end of page 2…