So, in short, you agree that there are no objective criteria by which to judge art, but also claim that certain knowledge can make you appreciate art more?
Well, then. No arguing there.
HUH?
Objective criteria = One way (among many) to learn to appreciate art more.
That’s the point of the education. Not memorizing subjective opinions (or flipping a coin and deciding which one’s right). Analysis. Objective criteria. Analysts don’t agree perfectly, no; but they can at least discuss the subject (beyond “I like = good.”).
There’s also plenty of historical, political, and technical knowledge to be had, if one chooses.
Truth be told, I think the way art history actually develops is, a trained artist does something that just hits people right in the gut, knocking their socks clean off, and the analysis is all about figuring out why that happened. “Modern” v. “Renaissance” art is sometimes about stripping away elements to get straight to that aesthetic experience, without all the details.
But there’s no way to discuss the magic of an aesthetic experience on a messageboard, it’s just beyond the medium.
And not all art in museums is about an aesthetic experience, either; some of it is historical or political in significance.
But don’t think I just gave you the “gotcha” you’re looking for. You’d be missing a key word in my scenario – “trained”. It starts out with learning the basics, like internal coherence (which is just one key quality, but I think it translates to the printed word fairly well so I’ve stuck with it). Even (what I would consider) non-aesthetic historical and political paintings have that quality, in spades.
Absent that, absent basic competence on the part of the artist, the “aesthetic experience” that people might have (which you, yourself, may feel about Kinkade’s work) is considered not a true visual experience per se, but an associative appreciation. In other words, Kinkade’s work is crap, but if it evokes strong memories from childhood or somesuch, it might give you a buzz. Maybe that’s why people ARE buying it, they like his “idyllic” world? If they’d been trained to see art as a visual medium (rather than merely the semi-accurate placement of familiar objects), they would see it quite differently. They might still like it, but they wouldn’t see it the same way.
That is the point of art.
Now you’re getting close. People attempt to analyze why a piece of art works for a lot of people, formulate rules based on that analysis, and teach those rules to enable creation of more good art. Excellent. What you are doing is reversing the relationship between the art and the rules. Art isn’t good because it follows the rules, the rules are correct because they describe good art.
Considered by you. Why the hell should I care?
No, the point of art is eliciting a response. That’s it.
It’s not just me, Priceguy, don’t personalize this - have you noticed that googling “Kinkade” and “criticism” doesn’t bring up much? Just a few blogs and some notes about people suing him for bad business practices.
The Legitimate Art World is so appalled by his existence, they don’t even begin to acknowledge him; he’s their Fred Phelps, only worse, because he’s widely popular. So they hide behind “art isn’t for the masses - just look at the crap they’re buying!”
I’m telling you that if you understood what gave people membership in the Legitimate Art World, you could understand why it’s been denied to him. I’m egalitarian enough to think anyone who wants that knowledge can have it.
Honestly, I don’t give a crap whether you, personally, ever figure this out; but I love this issue and since I don’t have the time and energy to paint right now, debating is the closest I’m able to get.
I happen to have a copy of Art for Dummies here, written by Thomas Hoving, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He lists the following criteria under “Is a work of art any good?”. Thomas Kinkade, “Painter of Light” who cannot paint light, bombs right off the bat:
Correction, the point of art is to elicit the response that the artist intends.
Here is my take on this: There are objective criteria to analyzing art. There is also personal taste, and the two do not necessarily always line up. Priceguy: Nobody is saying you can’t like Kinkade. To continue the sports analogy, nobody is saying that you can’t have a favorite player who isn’t the best player. Or that your favorite team may be one that has never won a game. You are welcome to like them the best, but it would be wrong to say that they are superior overall to the others. Does that make sense? To use another example, I like Jiffy corn muffins better than homemade. I acknowledge that they’re inferior by all objective criteria (quality of ingredients, natural ingredients, health, etc) and I acknowledge that these objective criteria are valid. I just happen to prefer the taste of the Jiffy cheapo mix muffins better, by some quirk of personal taste. But I’d be showing my undies to start announcing that they are better than homemade in any real way, or to say that there is no objective way to compare the two.
Christopher, artistic intention is whole can of worms. What can you say about, oh, Jan van Eyck’s intention?
Fessie-- you’re getting ardent. The objective criteria aren’t so objective and certainly not universal or timeless. And your criticism of Kinkade in post #108 sounds very retro 19th-century in tone. “Okay, about those reds and purples - have you ever looked at a real bush (vegetative, I mean). Foliage doesn’t go from bright to dark like that - or if it did, if that’s the approach he wanted to take, then why is the sky so gently painted?” What if you apply those same standards to, day, Matisse’s Green Stripe? “The point of a realistic painting is to represent a moment in time, so you wouldn’t see two disparate views simultaneously[…]” Aristotelian unities are so 1450-1830. Are you projecting a “realistic” project onto Kinkade? Is he shooting for photorealism? These are your standards that you’re applying to him and that you certainly wouldn’t apply to George Braques or Cezanne, I assume.
Kinkade isn’t the serious art world’s Phelps. Not that influential-- a non-entity, like many many other artists. They already have Jeff Koons to deal with.
(and Hoving’s criteria there are glurgy sister Wendy style, ech. )
I have no idea who Jan van Eyck is. I am in no way a good critic of art, because I am generally ignorant. My opinion comes from the gut. My opinion is less valid than that of someone that has studied art.
Cosimo Cavallaro (I just found out he did the chocolate Jesus too.) is probably one of my favorite modern artists, and I am a Cubs fan.
capybara, I’ve wondered where you’ve been. What’s your explanation for why the “most widely collected artist of our time” (assuming that’s actually true) isn’t on your radar?
Do you want to tackle the Picasso questions?
The Phelps analogy - well, OK, maybe not. I just noticed Dopers exhorting each other to ignore him recently, and it seemed to me that’s how the art world treats Kinkade (plus there is the Christian angle).
Obviously an exhaustive cataloging of objective art criteria is well beyond this forum (and my knowledge), so I didn’t aim for that - but Kinkade does claim to be “the painter of light”, so that’s why I picked at his bushes, at his treatment of light through foliage, on stones, in the sky. The vast gulf between his work and Hopper’s (or Sargent’s, or Homer’s), it blows my mind.
I’m not expecting him to be a photo-anything or follow any particular century’s traditions. I’m surprised you would even suggest that.
I’d just like Kinkade’s work to make some sense, visually, if he’s going to claim that he’s “better than Picasso” (which he HAS said) (and a lot of people apparently believe) (this doesn’t frighten you?) (I think it should).
Matisse’s Green Stripe is a great example of how important internal consistency is — all of the elements of the piece work together, the textured brushwork provides continuity, the flat color in the background and in her clothes complements the primarily flat treatment in her face. Look at the relationship between the highlight on her lower lip and the arch of her brow - they lock together, and the shape is mirrored in the silhouette of her hair. The red and the green playing off each other, it gives the piece movement, it almost looks like she’s turning her head. And that bit of green above her other eye, how it balances her face; cover it with your thumb, and the left side is far too heavy. Cover all of the red, and the green becomes kind of nauseating, sickly.
Had a lesser artist painted it, he/she wouldn’t have been able to sustain the energy, the brushwork and the color intensity throughout the piece.
Had Kinkade painted her, the background would have a sunset; her eyes, nose and mouth would be a mix of high-contrast and deep shadows; nothing else about her face would be discernable, just an empty wallpaper expanse; and her clothes would be bright magenta in defiance of all logic (and color sensibility).
BTW, the specific piece I was critiquing is no longer on the front page of his website (not surprising, since I wrote that four years ago) - but what’s hysterical is, those criticisms apply to all of the “cottage series” anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.
One is a newspaper, and the other is satirical fiction. You’d have better luck comparing Weekly World News to The Onion.
Actually, you’ve done an excellent job of articulating why you dislike Kincaide. You’ve definitly laid out a set of objective criteria by which you judge art. What you’ve missed is that the preference for objective criteria in assessing art is, itself, a subjective preference.
That does, indeed, seem to be a very apt metaphor for your posts in this thread, although I suspect you did not mean it to be interpreted as such.
This is exactly why I like it and have a poster of it in my bedroom and also why I like impressionism in general. If I want realism I’ll go outside and look around. 
I can understand realistic portrayals of things in the past before photographs but today with photos I much prefer the non-realistic looking stuff.
Sorry-- finals week. I have to get to an exam but short answer for why TK isn’t on my radar: we deal with the freakshow, not the muggles (I mean this non-pejoratively). We deal, again, with the avant garde and things that are new and different (or were new and different at some point). We don’t talk much about Kinkade because he’s not doing anything new, just like we don’t talk much about 98%+ of art from any time period. TK is a bit more cliche than many, but there are many artists who are very skilled who we don’t talk about-- say, an extremely talented impressionist in 2007 wouldn’t make much of an impression, but a lot of people would enjoy the work very much. Everything we cover in an art history survey class is there because it’s an aberration.
More later.
<snerk>
I haven’t seen exactly this, but back in the 1960s I saw a painting that looked like a partially-erased chalkboard of equations. I don’t recall the artist, though. I thought it was pretty neat.
Did I really say it was the “only valid” way of looking at art? Because I thought the challenge was to demonstrate that objective criteria even exist. I thought the challenge was to prove that anything beyond subjectivity is possible.
I thought I said that people who were aware of the objective criteria would see art differently, but I recall acknowledging that they might maintain their current preferences.
Are you insulting me? Is that fun for you?
It strikes me as incredibly petty.
We do this twice a week. It’s called a chemistry seminar. The house is usually packed.
You’ve been pretty consistent in calling anyone who doesn’t use your criteria “ignorant.” That seems to rather strongly imply that you think other criteria are, at the very least, “less valid.”
Let me get this straight. You create an analogy to describe how your opponents in this thread are acting. I suggest that it more accurately describes your own behavior. And I’m the one who’s insulting and petty?
They’re not my criteria. I didn’t make this stuff up. I’m sharing what I was taught.
“It’s all subjective and all opinions are equal.”
v.
“Well, no, actually there are criteria for analyzing art. Here’s how we looked at art when I was in school.”
and then
“No, don’t give me knowledge or information; I just want to stick with my opinion.” <---- isn’t that rather the definition of “ignorant”?
“And, BTW, my opinion has just as much value as that of someone who’s studied art” <— and isn’t that a little, just a tiny bit, insulting?
Wow, nice example.
“Hey, Jim Bob. What say we go out to the moving picture show to see that there Garfield 2?” (spits tobacco)
“Are you kidding me, Billy Ray? That movie looks so awful I’d rather stay home and watch the pigs fuck in the mud.” (spits tobacco)
“Hey now, this here big-city tv movie-talking feller just gave it three out of four stars. Who are as we simple inbred pig farmers to second guess him?”
“You’re right, Billy Ray. Once again you have shown me the error of my haughty ways. If you wasn’t my brother, I’d kiss you.”
…CANNOT…RESIST…!..
“Never stopped you before.”