That is actually a good point. Artists in tradition mediums are trying to have relevance in this world when the subjects have already been covered based on everything from technology (fancy cameras and microscopes) to other disciplines (psychology, theology and others). The general idea that artists like to project is that they have some unique view or insight into what they want to cover. It could happen in some cases but most them aren’t sages and they are just projecting some subjective (and probably objectively inaccurate) view of something that is much better covered in a different way.
Why are we supposed to take it on faith that any message that doesn’t appear to be meaningful to the majority of people, in fact, has any worthy meaning? If I wanted commentary about almost any conceivable subject and I had a university at my disposal, the art department would be my last stop to learn about anything other than aestectics. When the aesthetics fail, the shell collapses and the worldly relevance dissolves to everyone but the artist.
Ah, I didn’t notice this one. Rothko. He’s one of those guys that I didn’t quite get by looking at his pictures in books. When I first saw a Rothko in person, I was floored. I don’t know what the hell he does or how he does it, but his paintings just “vibrate” and exude this ethereal spirituality, for lack of better expression. I know it sounds like crazy talk, but that was my first experience with Rothko in person-- a guy whose work I didn’t expect to like, I see it and have a sublime moment. If someone were to ask me how to represent “spirit” in a painting, I would point them to Rothko.
Well, perhaps the curator is like me. I find this particular piece very beautiful. I could actually stare at it for hours, and if I had more money I would have it in my home.
And I can’t tell you why. It’s partly the colours. Partly the brush strokes, the movement. I look at it and think it’s breathtaking. The first three pieces you linked to are not really my taste, but this one is…wonderful.
I assume that someone, somewhere feels the same way about the other pieces you linked to. Of course, a lot of art is very political - it would be incorrect to suggest that a great deal of what winds up in museums and galleries ISN’T political.
Friedo, you don’t know a damn thing about what art critics say, apparently. Or, what Miller said. And, ya’ll, taking Pollack as a whipping boy is so 1953.
WHY IS IT that on the one hand “unpretentious” people whine about art that needs explaining in class to completely understand (say, Renaissance religious or mythological works, for example), then on the other hand people are completely contemptuous of the only artists that wanted their art to not NEED explaining, and to simply BE (non-objective painters like Mondrian and Malevich, Minimalism, Abstract Expressionism, etc). Those artists didn’t expect you to get anything out of it but a warm fuzzy feeling. Why the hate?
–Pretentious ex-post-graduate art history student (graduated)
Yeah, Rothko is a strange experience: he somehow managed to figure out how to communicate raw, powerful emotions with nothing but color and shapes. Seeing Rothko in person is a life-changing experience.
The idea that modern art is anti-aesthetic and exists simply to make a statement is a bit of rhetorical generalization, but there’s some truth to it in that the goal of many early avant-garde artists was to challenge preconceived notions of art and shake up peoples’ sensibilities. In France, modern art took the form of a revolt against the Beaux arts school and the traditional classical technique, and many of the German artists, especially during and after World War I, relied on uncomfortable, often horrific subjects and deliberately jarring technique to convey powerful emotion - but not what most would consider aesthetic beauty - in their paintings. Marcel Duchamp famously displayed a urinal as a statue. This change was manifested in many different ways. Gentle Robot’s comment would have been the reaction of a typical Parisian to the emerging art of the time.
But it is in no way true that modern art discounts aesthetics. Miller’s link to the Hockney painting is just one example. I could go on all day about this, but instead of wasting time I’ll just say that if you really think “all” modern art is ugly, you need to see more of it.
I know it’s not directed at me, but for me at least, it obviously changed my opinion of Rothko in one fell swoop. Secondly, it taught me never ever to judge a painting by its representation as a reprint or on the web. Thirdly, it’s the closest I’ve had to a truly religious experience in the last twenty or so years. I’m not a religious person, but if I were, Rothko would be proof to me that artists talk to gods.
I had a similar experience with Rothko, though not as strongly as you and lissener. But it was definitly the “lightbulb” effect. One look at his work in the flesh, and something that I’d never seen the appeal of just clicked for me. Not just him, but minimalism in general. Color has always been one of the tools artists have used to convey emotion, but Rothko could do more using only that tool as most other artists could do with a fully equipped metaphorical machine shop. Rothko was a fucking samurai. He opened up a whole bunch of other artists for me, too, who did the same thing using other tools.
My real Road to Damascus moment was when I saw Guernica in person. I’d seen reprints of it over and over, and while I didn’t dislike it or anything, I thought I’d “gotten” it. Then I saw it in Madrid, life sized, and I almost ran from the gallery. It was overwhelming. It made me sick to my stomach. It was amazing. I’ve never been so affected by any other painting. Hell, there are damned few works of art in any medium that have affected me like that.
You remember a few years back, there was that guy who had stolen billions of dollars worth of art over the years, and his mother dumped most of it into a canal so that it couldn’t be used as evidence against her son? I remember arguing here that it wasn’t really that big a deal, because we had photographs of most of it in art books and the like.
Obviously, the part that didn’t “get” abstract art. It was like Helen Keller’s moment under the pump: suddenly she realized that there was such a thing as language. With Rothko, suddenly I realized that there was *another * language, or another approach to language, or another dimension for language entirely.
I think, and it’s just my opinion, that the reason there isn’t a title is so that you, the viewer, doesn’t have anything to lead you in your interpretation of the work. If it were titled “sunset over a pond”, you may look at for a few moments and say,“Yeah, I see that” and walk away. With no title, you have to figure out what it is, to you. So you are part of it. It’s not that the artist didn’t put any thought into the painting, the artist didn’t put any thought into your head. You have your thoughts about the work, not the artist’s.
I really like Jackson Pollock stuff in museums, but I hate it in prints. For me it’s all about the three dimensionality of the excess paint. Almost like a sculpture.
I’m usually one of those that just don’t ‘get it’ but in this case I agree with pulykamell. I can’t turn away from that painting and would love to have it hanging on my wall.
The three rectangle thing though… Oh well. Some people don’t like football, I got over it.
I had seen photos of Rothko’s work before, but last year I was in Houston dealing with in-law crisis and my husband and I managed to sneak away to the Rothko Chapel. At first I was a little underwhelmed by what appeared to be relatively monochromatic panels, but as I took time to sit with each painting individually, they came to life in front of me as details and movement revealed themselves. The way it was lit was also something that could not be conveyed in a photograph, there was a skylight and as the light changed and moved, the paintings showed different moods. Truly, truly breathtaking work. Probably almost completely unphotographable.
Oh. I wanted to add something but of course I missed my edit window. Somebody’s child or youthful sibling, given materials and instructions, probably could have made this. But I fell in love with it the moment I first saw a picture of it in an art history book in high school. Seeing it in the MoMA was just one of those perfect things in my life. I can’t tell you why I love it passionately and viscerally. It’s got nothing to do with any statement it might be intended to make, or with my (poor) level of art appreciation education. My read on it is a purely aesthetic response of undiluted pleasure.
Which just goes to show… what? People will make art and people will respond to it, and writing off a piece of art because I don’t understand it/immediately like it is probably not that great of an idea, because given the amount of stuff I inexplicably just love, someone else’s response to a piece I don’t care for may well be just as intensely positive as my response to the aforementioned stuff I inexplicably love.
This is a very important point. I’m an artist, and I’ve had my best work rejected from shows in which artists are allowed to enter only one piece. It’s really difficult for someone to evaluate my work unless they’re seeing several of my pieces. I’ve heard people say that they didn’t “get” my work when they only saw one piece, and I don’t blame them.
And by the way, no child or animal can do what I do. Neither can most adults.
I like it too. It’s Lynne Taetzsch, and a bit later than you thought. You would probably like a lot of her other stuff too - here are a few, plus her explanation of why she moved from realism to abstraction.
