I am not at all fond of this genre and wonder if I’m the only one (and I don’t consider myself as one of the cognicenti - not by a long shot).
In fact, I seriously wonder if Modern Art (like the splatterings of Pollock and the rest of the gibberish by others) is a big con.
If this offends you, vent your rage, if not, say so as well.
I like cubism fine. I wouldn’t put it on the living room wall, but it’s a neat formal experiment. It laid the groundwork for a lot of the formal experiments that followed.
I also like the splatterings of Jackson Pollack. . .
[you’ve invoked my wrath, but only a couple of other posters would have been able to warn you]
. . even though several other people since, oh, 19-fucking-fifty have been brave enough to call him a con artist, believe it or not (do a short search and you’ll find tedious discussions about it on these very boards).
HE WAS PAINTING 60 YEARS AGO PEOPLE. GET A NEW WHIPPING BOY. Seriously, why don’t we slag on Jeff Koons or Damian Hirst or something halfway current and edgy?
Sorry if this sounds peevish, but as the resident art cogniscento I’ve been paying attention and have a keen index on the frequency with which this opinion is voiced on these boards.
If anyone wants a little lecture on, say, WHY Cubism or Abstract Expressionism doesn’t suck/ what they trying to do/ why it was all important?-- let me know. Seriously. Don’t let me stop the slagfest, but if anyone wants a SDMB like moment in learning a goddamn thing about what we don’t understand, let me know and I’ll compose a nice writeup so at least the members of this board can rip on these artists with some sort of idea of what they’re ripping on and be educated ranters. That’s why we’re here, right?
But AE does suck. If the thing I’m trying to do sucks, and I do it successfully, it still sucks.
Fine.
Short answer to the OP: art’s cognoscenti, maybe. Art’s not-so-cognoscenti, not so much. But who cares what the snobs think, anyway? Carry on.
Cubism was fine, and led to other things – and Picasso was not the only successful cubist.
I also don’t get Jackson Pollock’s work. I enjoy a lot of abstract painting, but I really don’t get random splatters of paint scattered on a canvas – even if the person splattering is really clever, as Jackson Pollock was. So shoot me.
Cubism, as a formal artistic discipline practiced by Picasso and Braque primarily, lasted maybe five years. It was a stylistic experiment that was more about expanding the possibilities of art and redefining the rules than about producing outstanding artworks in and of themselves. And as such, it is critically important, if not especially enjoyable by itself.
You’ll be preaching to the choir in my case, but I’d love to hear it anyway.
For what it’s worth, as a time saving device, for whoever is invested in this question, a couple of threads from a couple of months ago.
Explain Jackson Pollack to Me
Famous Works of Art that you Hate
And
“My kid sister could draw that!” Why in Art Museums?
I hope cognoscenti isn’t shorthand for “people who actually go to the trouble to understand the artist’s motives and the historical context.”
In my view, art appreciation is about more than sensory pleasure.* Most works require you to do some reading.
*except Chihuly
Oh, and on the subject of ether Picasso was a con artist or not: I assume the con in question is an attempt to pass himself off as a “real” artist. If that had been his intent, it probably would have been easier to pull off if he’d kept painting like this. Yes, that’s a Picasso in that link. He painted that when he was fifteen or so. He was a ferociously talented artist, and whatever you may think of the ends to which he bent that talent, there is no question that he was utterly sincere about it.
I don’t get this. I should be able to judge a painting or a sculpture on its own visual merits, not have to study what someone else says about it. A piece of music is either something I enjoy listening to or it’s not - the composer’s politicosocioreligious message behind it all doesn’t make any difference.
If I don’t like it, that doesn’t necessarily make it crap…but the message is lost and what’s the point in trying to communicate a message if one can’t do it effectively and solely in your chosen medium?
The viewpoint that art is more than sensory pleasure and one must know the secrets before one can appreciate it makes me think of a religious aspect in which one cannot interact with the Supreme Deity without the intervention of a priest…like the resistance to having the Bible published because the “common man” would NEVER understand it and the serfs needed the nobility and the priesthood to interpret everything for them.
Maybe, maybe not. I kinda agree that Art is a medium of communication, and if you are trying to communicate with a wide spectrum of people you’d better be very careful how you set about doing it. OTOH, if you don’t care about the masses, and just want to communicate with those who “get you,” that’s ok too. Just don’t bitch when the lumpenproletariat call you on it.
Personally, I love Pollack. Wish I could afford him.
Name an example of a work of art, the message of which you understand purely by virtue of its formal qualities alone, with no context added, as a thought experiment.
That nice Madonna by Raphael?
Pretty, right? Context important? Not at all. Fine. Too bad his message isn’t being sufficiently communicated and you’re not getting his references to St Birgitta’s Revelations, or that that kid is, like, Jesus and shit, and that the other kid is John the Baptist making that very specific hand gesture with that very specific baby herd animal, and Raphael’s relationship with antiquity and humanism and religion and that this was an altarpiece that served a Eucharistic function, but paid for by a private patron who had additional motivations, etc etc.
Raphael has failed. Poor schmuck.
You can judge it on its own merits and like it or not like it, but don’t single out modern art as the one thing that is failing to get its messages across as a chunk of canvas with some paint on it.
On that note, why do many of the same people that don’t think we need to bother with understanding a work’s context hate Minimalism ala Donald Judd? This was one of the first artists to insist that there WAS no content except formal qualities. He’s on your side! Love it! “All I see are some chunks of copper. . .” “Exactly!” Judd answers you,“there isn’t anything else. Nice copper, huh?”
That’s an interesting position, and one which can be discussed and defended. I happen to be of the school that believes that in any work of art, be it music, painting, literature, etc., that context is important.
For example, I may pick up a copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses (if I could lift it, that is ;)) and derive a certain amount of pleasure from reading the book. However, would my enjoyment be increased greatly if I actually understoof the literary allusions he uses? Of course. So why should painting, for example, be any different?
I doubt capybara is objecting to those who hold the position that art should stand on its own, without context. More likely, the objection is to those who don’t actually know anything about art, dismiss it regardless, and are unwilling to examine their own prejudices, saying instead, “my kid could paint that!”
ETA: Man, I hate it when I am writing something and someone steals my thunder. shakes fist at capybara 
Abstract Expressionism, actually, German Expressionism is my favorite period of painting. It’s not trying to suck at all. It’s transcendently beautiful. I don’t understand how people can look at Kandinsky and think it’s trying to suck. For that matter, I also don’t understand how some people don’t see the intricate beauty in Pollack, the layers of pattern upon patterns and perfect balance of light and line. I’ve tried painting abstract expressionist-type works and I just don’t even know where to start. Everything I’ve ever tried in that genre ended up looking like crap, which is not how any of the AE stuff looks to me. shrug Different strokes for different folks.
Look, Picasso is dead. 1910 is a foreign country.
If you want to walk up to one of his paintings and experience it naively, have a ball.
However if you’d like to learn a little about him and his subject matter and his times, I submit your experience will be so much the richer.
Actually, thinking more about Judd, it’s almost ironic that the artists who were working with theories that viewers shouldn’t have to know anything specific to understand their works are the most reviled by the general public. Ironic, I tell you.
Mondrian thinks that there is an ideal realm of universal truths behind this meat-world and wants to reduce his art into a universal vocabulary that every human can experience equally, without having to have training. He wants to remove the nasty complicating baggage of “representation” and let the painting speak on its own terms in an exceedingly simple language.
Pollack and the other AE guys thought that process and automatism and non-objectivity would encode subconscious emotional content into their works that the viewer would react to without having to think about it or realize it.
Rothko just wants to communicate an emotion, and he thinks blue makes us thoughtful and calm. Same goes for Kandinsky or Malevich-- they just want to communicate something spiritual through line and color.
The Minimalists and Formalists just want us to appreciate that this canvas is paint on a two dimensional surface, because it is, and that this red is, like, really red. Because it is. Check out this red!
Why the hate from most viewers that they’re "not getting it"and that these artists are charlatans who aren’t communicating their messages? There ISN’T a “message” for you to get-- that was the whole point.
You’re not missing some super crypto cabbalistic effete secret that the snobs aren’t letting you in on, and your refusal to listen to them explain what the point was is blinding you to the fact that with these works of art you ARE on a level playing field for once.
Where did I single out modern art?
Raphael’s deeper message, whatever it may be, is a whoosh simply because I don’t have the religious/art history background. I’d venture to say that very few people get his message, then or now, but he managed to paint something aesthetically appealing to enough people that he’s still fairly popular. In other words, yes, there’s a DEEPER message (or many), but he also managed to communicate something along the order of “Hey, look at this picture I painted. I think I chose some pretty nice colors and drew some nice figures here, what do you think?” and a lot of people still say “Yeah, hey, nice work, dude.”
Michelangelo’s David may have levels and levels of meaning, but who is to say that the “message” wasn’t simply “Hey, here’s an interesting pose to try and sculpture.” I admired the statue long before I knew who it was supposed to be. Did knowing that it’s David of David and Goliath fame cause me to look at it differently? Not one whit.
What’s the message of Beethoven’s Opus 61? Is there one? I just know that piece has been an integral part of my life for years, and I love it with a passion. Doesn’t that mean I got Beethoven’s message of “Hey, listen to what I’m doing here, I think it’s pretty cool”? Would dissecting and studying it cause it to mean more to me? I doubt it - the analytical knife often kills something along the way. Twain’s example of the Mississippi comes to mind.
I think you’ve misunderstood Key Lime Guy’s point. It’s not about understanding any sort of “politicosocioreligious message.” It’s not like you’re going to read a book that explains that Picasso used yellow in this particular painting because he really hated Hitler, or anything like that. It’s about understanding the artistic antecedents that a particular work is either elaborating on, or rebelling against. Art does not exist in a vacuum. Picasso didn’t just one day say, “Hey, what if I put both eyes on the same side of the person’s head? How crazy would that be?” Cubism evolved as a reaction to the state of the artistic world at the time. To understand cubism, you need to understand what other artists were doing at the time, and had been done before hand.
FWIW, the absolute best description of modern art and expressionistic art I’ve ever seen was in Chaim Potok’s novel, The Gift of Asher Lev. But you’ll probably have to read My Name is Asher Lev first, else the sequel won’t make a whole lot of sense.
Okay, now, look. I’m not a complete moron nor a dunce. I have made SOME effort to find out WHY Picasso was important and what these “movements” were all about. Then I go back and look at the art and think “Nope, still doesn’t work for me.” Still not communicating.
And he expects colored squares and lines to convey this message of universal truth? HOW? I’m not being snotty, but how in Og’s name did he expect the visual medium to convey this? (Rhetorical question.)
Color me confused, because I get no emotion from these paintings. Well, yeah, I can react to it without thinking about it…aesthetically I don’t like it.
This again escapes me. Not because I can’t appreciate a minimalist approach in some ways (form follows function), but the message of “hey, red paint on a canvas”…again, WHY? (and again rhetorical)
I never said hate nor did I say anything about charlatans, quacks, or hacks. In fact, I specifically said “Just because I don’t like it doesn’t make it crap.”
Clearly, capybara, you’ve had several heated discussions similar to this in the past and I’m coming in for the backlash. If you want to win me over to your point of view, you’re not doing a great job of showing that I’d enjoy the company I’d be keeping.
