And it seems to me you’re begging the question by insisting a visual artist is just “some schmuck” whilst not extending the same courtesy to generals or musicians. Just like Clapton’s guitar, Duchamp’s bicycle is a cultural artifact of significance - deal with it. People obviously have different tastes and respond to different works, but shrilly insisting that someone who appreciates something you don’t is being duped or deceived is the worst kind of snobbery. Extending that to include all “modern” art (whatever the fuck that means) seems dangerously closed-minded.
I would also venture to suggest that Mozart’s 5th symphony is heard today, when it is, solely because it is by Mozart. It is interesting because it was written when the great composer was 9 years old, and he went on to great things.
It isn’t an outstanding example of why he would be considered by many people to be one of the greatest composers of all time.
It shows the promise of his future, and it is worthwhile to explore its place in the chronology of his output. It is also fun to note that the theme from the finale was borrowed and reworked from Johann Christian Bach, and would eventually find its way into the Act II finale of ‘Marriage of Figaro’, but if it had disappeared and never been found, it wouldn’t have been the tragic loss that, say, losing Symphony #35 would have been.
So, even outside the context of ‘modern’ art, the artist’s oeuvre is another part of his interest, fame, reputation and collectability.
Can you measure ‘degree of non-representativeness’? The others are objective criteria, but don’t directly relate to the skill of the artist. But they may well be used to inform an objective evaluation of the value of a piece.
Photographs don’t ‘purport to depict’ something. They are an actual visual record of a thing. This conversation is about modern art, isn’t it? Therefore, in context, the art we’re discussing would be things like paintings and sculptures? I suppose photography is technically a ‘modern’ ‘art form’, but that doesn’t mean that this thread is about that. So when I talk about judging art by a certain criteria in this thread, why would someone assume what I said applies equally to photography, or, for example, music?
It’s completely outside the context of the discussion. Different art forms would have different criteria.
So, no, what I said does not suggest photography is the most bestest form of art ever, because photography was outside of the context of the discussion.
I’m saying there are objective criteria one can use if one wants to objectively quantify the value or quality of a piece of art. They (those criteria) exist.
They have no direct relationship with aesthetics. Aesthetics are subjective. I can subjectively enjoy a piece that I don’t believe has any objective value.
I realize most people don’t value art on an objective basis. I’m not saying they should. But I do think they should acknowledge that they’re not doing so.
I think the world of art, art sales, and art criticism is largely populated by a bunch of frauds and hucksters who like to pretend that there is inherent value that corresponds to their perceived value. I strenuously object to the conflation of objectivity and subjectivity.
I hope that this and my previous post utterly clarifies my position, argument, and intent, because I have a migraine right now and I really don’t know when I’ll get back to the thread.
This is incorrect, and at the heart of all statements of YMMV, Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder, etc…
You can argue that, amongst certain groups of collectors or another group, that there is a common-enough set of criteria and valuation of that criteria that you can get a value within a range (e.g., predicing the pre-sale price of a Picasso at auction), but that’s about it.
You can’t compare a painting to a summer day to a lovely person to a rap record and objectively quantify the value of that thing as a piece of art.
I think I understant him now: I think he’s saying that there are objective criteria one can use to to judge art, but they are meaningless in the way that people actually do judge art. So nobody actually judges art in any objective way.
In that sense I think he’s probably right. And in fact you are agreeing with him, but don’t know it.
All art is an interaction between the artist and the viewer. But when you use the word “resembles” you’re adding a third element. Take the “Mona Lisa.” There’s the artist, Da Vinci, then there’s you, the viewer. And there’s also a woman, or maybe an archetype of a woman, and we’re supposed to judge how accurately the artist depicted her (in spite of the fact that only the artist actually saw her, not any living viewers. So how do we judge “how closely it resembles what it purports to depict”? If he had replaced her eyes with one big eye in the middle of her forehead, we’d say the artist failed in his depiction.
Yet when Picasso did it, we understand that he was depicting a reality that’s different than the one that Da Vinci saw, and different than the reality we see around us. Picasso’s woman is a very different attempt at portraying a 3-dimensional woman on a 2-dimensional canvas. We know that we are seeing a “normal” woman, depicted through the imagination of the artist.
Then there’s Jackson Pollack. He eliminated the woman entirely. His work doesn’t “resemble” anything in our experience . . . it is a direct communication between the artist and the viewer, entirely omitting the third element that Da Vinci and Picasso had included.
So when you say that “you can objectively judge art by how closely it resembles what it purports to depict,” you first have to ask yourself what it purports to depict. Da Vinci and Picasso and Pollack did not “purport to depict” the same thing.
I’m sorry, but you’re still wrong here. The “actual visual record” is as deceptive as the artist wants it to be, even without fooling around with airbrushes or Photoshop.
And this applies to all photos, not just the obvious ones in the link. No 2D photo can give you an “actual visual record” of 3D reality. (And of course, then there’s 4D.)
This past weekend, I was doing some interior painting (walls). My dropcloth resembles Jackson Pollock’s “art”-should I get my dropcloth appraised?
I’m sure your dropcloth looks nothing like a Jackson Pollock. His work was very deliberate. Here’s as objective a mathematical analysis you’ll get of his art.
Wow, there’s… just so much wrong with this, I’m not really sure where to start. I mean, if you want to talk about the history of modern art, you really can’t avoid photography, as modern art came about in large part as a reaction to the invention of film camera.
And why shouldn’t what you’ve said apply equally to photography? The end result is the same: a visual rendering on a two dimensional plane. Does it matter, from the viewer’s perspective, if that rendering was created in oil paint, water color, or silver halide? The distinction becomes even more arbitrary when you consider that abstract and expressionistic art can be created with a camera as well as a paintbrush. The terms we’re discussing here are ideas, not techniques. They can be expressed in any visual medium.
Lastly, the idea that photographs don’t have any artifice in them is absurd enough that I don’t think I have to specifically rebut it here.
Not particularly, no. I mean, sure, there are some things that just don’t translate from one artform to another. You can’t really criticize a piece of music for its color palette, and it is difficult at best to rate a painting by how well you can dance to it. However, when two artforms employ the same or similar element or principle, you can frequently learn a great deal by comparing the two.
Pretending an argument does not exist is not the same as disproving that argument. The inherent superiority of photography is a natural, logical extension of your premise. You can’t get around that by declaring, on your own authority, that photography is outside the context of the discussion.
No hurries, no worries, mate. Hope you feel better soon.
I think everybody is misunderstanding him: He’s not saying that there are objective ways to measure the value of art, and these objective ways are the correct ways to value them; he’s saying these objective ways are the INCORRECT ways to value them – the correct ways are the subjective ways that everybody DOES value art. He’s just saying that there can be completely arbitrary, mathematical, objective ways to value art if we really want to do that – but we don’t, and we shouldn’t.
I don’t think so. If you go back to where he first injected the idea of realism as an objective value, it was in response to me saying that classical art and modern art are alike in having no objective value. If he did not intend to argue that realism is an objective value to art, he chose a pretty weird place to interject the idea.
Art from people like Hirst just annoys me more than anything else. But what is worse is the attempt to explain modern art. William Empson described the copy that is written for art exhibitions as a steady, iron-hard jet of absolutely total nonsense.
I can’t disagree.
Something I thought people would have learnt after the latest tulip mania was that Blue Poles is only worth $100 million if you find someone willing to buy it for $100 million.
If you want to spend your own money on something like this, go ahead, but anyone who would use taxpayer money should be fired.
You didn’t read my clarification post before responding. I acknowledge that most people don’t choose to evaluate art in the way I describe. My statement that you’re quoting only insists that it is possible to do so, which is indisputable.
Thank you. Yes. Exactly.