I don’t know, why don’t you tell us?
Typed like someone whose never seen Pollock at work, or read anything about analysisof his work.
“Throw paint on a canvas” is a gross mischaracterization of his process.
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.
It’s not meant to be charming. In the slightest.
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.
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.
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.
As has, I hope, now been pointed out often enough here, that’s simply not true.
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.
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.
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.
That’s exactly what you’re doing when you say things like:
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.
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.
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.