# Mona Lisa in the West, ??? in the East/North/South? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 1, 2016, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mona-lisa-in-the-west-in-the-east-north-south/744889 "2016-02-01T22:54:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mona-lisa-in-the-west-in-the-east-north-south/744889/21 "2016-02-04T05:27:11Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > How many fake Pollocks are there? I don’t know, why don’t you tell us? > [@](#): > > You know why? Because anybody can throw paint on a canvas, that’s why. Typed like someone whose never [seen Pollock at work](https://www.sfmoma.org/watch/jackson-pollocks-drip-painting-process/), or read anything about [analysis](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/now-computer-can-differentiate-between-real-jackson-pollocks-and-fakes-180954300/?no-ist)of his work. “Throw paint on a canvas” is a gross mischaracterization of his process. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mona-lisa-in-the-west-in-the-east-north-south/744889/22 "2016-02-04T05:31:54Z")
> [@YogSothoth](#): > > Why would it be so difficult recreating a Pollock? _Apparently_ because the people who think they can easily do it are under the mistaken impression he just randomly dripped paint on canvas without direction or intent. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mona-lisa-in-the-west-in-the-east-north-south/744889/23 "2016-02-04T05:42:55Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > I don’t see any charm to “Guernica” anywhere. It’s not _meant_ to be charming. In the slightest. ---
**Author:** ![Ignotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecc23a/32.png) [@Ignotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignotus)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mona-lisa-in-the-west-in-the-east-north-south/744889/24 "2016-02-04T06:13:49Z")
Munch’s [_The Scream_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream) might be a contender for most famous Northern painting. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mona-lisa-in-the-west-in-the-east-north-south/744889/25 "2016-02-04T12:37:06Z")
> [@YogSothoth](#): > > Why would it be so difficult recreating a Pollock? > > I’m sorry, but [this](http://www.jackson-pollock.org/images/paintings/autumn-rhythm.jpg) or [this](http://www.jackson-pollock.org/images/paintings/number-one.jpg) isn’t hard. He drips paint on canvas. He throws it around. Paint lands based on luck and gravity. I doubt if you take any square inch from one of his paintings, you could ever say he meant for this line of white paint to be exactly next to this splotch of gray. The paintings even have round drops where he hovered too long and it fell due to random chance. That doesn’t take skill at all. Again, to be clear: everyone is welcome to think the way they do about art. But you are asking folks to comment on Greatest and Best, and then casually toss off how Kinkade is better than Pollock and of course we should all agree and use that approach in this discussion. Followed by “isn’t it obvious?” glib replies. No, it isn’t obvious. And, per my previous post, the evidence of money, respect, museum placements, etc., could not be more contrary to your assertion. So you have appointed yourself Arbiter of Art and don’t want to hear when other folks want to point out that your criteria aren’t necessarily reflected in what is happening in the real world. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mona-lisa-in-the-west-in-the-east-north-south/744889/26 "2016-02-04T17:37:52Z")
> [@YogSothoth](#): > > I just don’t think new is better. Neither do I, and I didn’t say that. Every time I take a shit, odds are nobody’s shat quite that way before. But it’s still just a shit. But I do think there is something of value in innovation—in taking the familiar, and putting it into a new context, or combination, or whatever. Developing the medium you’re working with. That’s what Pollock did that Kinkade failed to. > [@](#): > > Abstract meaning it doesn’t really look like anything, or that symbolism is so nebulous its hard to grasp the meaning, can be achieved in music too. Even more, _all_ music is completely abstract. You’re habituated to particular harmonies, particular ways of arranging sounds, but there’s nothing that stands to these arrangements in any sort of representational relationship; they sound good to you simply because they do, because of some contingent facts about your auditory nervous system, and every new composition is an exploration into what kind of things sound good (or equivalently, jarring, elating, haunting, depressing, and so on). The same is true for non-representational art: its aim is not to depict, nor to show off skill, and thus, its failing to do so is not its failure—it’s simply applying the wrong yardstick. > [@](#): > > I would say that static is the aural equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting. Its pretty random, no rhyme or reason, no pitch, nothing recognizable. As has, I hope, now been pointed out often enough here, that’s simply not true. > [@](#): > > If its something I can do in my house, and almost anyone can do, then it has an overabundance of supply. Its not rare, its not hard, so why are we saying its “better” art? But aesthetic value is not a question of supply and demand. Just because few people can do it, doesn’t mean doing it is in some way valuable. Few people can rise to power, become tyrants and commit genocide; that doesn’t mean there’s any value to doing so. > [@](#): > > I think you’re wrong. Even a straightforward sunset can represent something. A sunset can represent the tail end of life, a sunrise is a new beginning. That’s not what the sunset represents, it’s what you interpret into it, what it evokes in you. Apparently, you value that when it comes to sunsets; when it comes to Pollock, it’s grounds for you to dismiss it. > [@](#): > > People don’t simply look at that and see a ball of hydrogen in space timed to a planet’s rotation. No, they see what they ultimately always see: some arrangement of shapes and colors. Particular arrangements have particular effects, just as particular arrangements of sounds have particular effects. That’s no less true with a Pollock. > [@](#): > > I don’t think I insisted that. That’s exactly what you’re doing when you say things like: > [@](#): > > But I would object if you say its more artistic than, say, Kidz Bop. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mona-lisa-in-the-west-in-the-east-north-south/744889/27 "2016-02-04T17:57:29Z")
> [@YogSothoth](#): > > Why would it be so difficult recreating a Pollock? I would love to be able to create something that looks like a Pollock. I’ve tried messing around with action painting, but anything I could come up with just looks like shit. There is a “rhythm” and composition to his work. There’s definitely a lot of pattern and intention in where the splashes are. Sure, there’s a bit of randomness to it – that was part of the point – but you (or, well, at least I) can see an overarching compositional basis for his paintings. This has been scientifically studied, too, [with one physicist analyzing the fractal nature of his work](http://discovermagazine.com/2001/nov/featpollock). Honestly, I don’t care about that fractal analysis stuff. All I care about is my reaction when I see a Pollock. It’s beautiful. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mona-lisa-in-the-west-in-the-east-north-south/744889/28 "2016-02-04T19:10:24Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I would love to be able to create something that looks like a Pollock. I’ve tried messing around with action painting, but anything I could come up with just looks like shit. There is a “rhythm” and composition to his work. There’s definitely a lot of pattern and intention in where the splashes are. Sure, there’s a bit of randomness to it – that was part of the point – but you (or, well, at least I) can see an overarching compositional basis for his paintings. This has been scientifically studied, too, [with one physicist analyzing the fractal nature of his work](http://discovermagazine.com/2001/nov/featpollock). > > Honestly, I don’t care about that fractal analysis stuff. All I care about is my reaction when I see a Pollock. It’s beautiful. Ah, but is it Best or Greatest? I enjoy discussing Art, and would like to find way to walk past this issue to have a “better” discussion about Best and Greatest. But I can’t. Any discussion about Art which begins with “Okay let’s discuss Art…but this/these types of Art which are objectively held in the _highest_ regard in the Art world, in fact suck and are something a child could do. Okay? Go!” :dubious: I hear a mind made up. The Art Police have spoken. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2016, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mona-lisa-in-the-west-in-the-east-north-south/744889/29 "2016-02-06T01:59:49Z")
I don’t think too highly of Pollack myself, either. I’m told his work is different in person, but it’s underwhelming online and in the books I’ve seen. But in no way would I try to say that Kinkaid is better. He has some works that are pleasing to me, but a whole lot of it is cheap dreck that I could and have gotten at those cheap art stands. Pollack’s stuff doesn’t appeal to me aesthetically, but there isn’t anyone who actually mimics him that doesn’t look a whole lot worse. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mona-lisa-in-the-west-in-the-east-north-south/744889.md?page=1)