Thank you for this answer. This makes a lot sense. It’s almost like if the art gets a reaction, that a good thing… even if the reaction might be “what the heck”.
As for the “kid could draw it”, I admit I google-image-searched for artwork to show my point. After reading through the posts, I admit I may have picked a poor representative for “kid”. Yet, I feel my question was a good one: How does art that “looks like a kid drew it” get in, and I got some good answers.
And I had no idea about how prominent Rothko was; ignorance fought once again.
About consensus, I deal with about 5 different art history survey texts, and I recall what was in a few of them from 15 years ago, say, and it’s interesting to see what works are included in all 5, or which book chooses what by whom as an example of X, especially in the case of things since 1980-- it’s odd to watch as 'contemporary criticism" becomes 'art historical consensus" before my eyes. Some artists get left out in the next edition, and 5 editions later, as the 80s chapter gets shorter and a 90s chapter appears, they toss in a 21st century chapter, so it’s interesting to see what the major writers are agreeing should stay in the book.
I have found that as I get older, I appreciate abstract art more. I still don’t like a lot of it, and find some of it pretentious and exclusive, but there are some pieces that IF you take the time to really look at them, come alive. Tapies’ “White and Orange” comes to mind or Frank Stella’s Six Mile Bottom.
I especially like Clyfford Still’s “1953”–it seems to exemplify (to me) the beginnings of the tearing away of the old order–a precursor to the 60’s. Bridget Riley’s “Conversation” is fun and colorful, very graphic design-y;Popova is too, but with a note of melancholy to her colorful swirls–there is an undertone of sorrow to her pictures, IMO. Finally, Barnett Newman’s “Moment” is fascinating. It helps if the viewer can translate the visual into either emotional metaphor or a visual depiction of feelings. (that’s what I do-that is how art resonates with me-lots of it doesn’t).
I can appreciate some sculpture, but most abstract sculpture leaves me cold. The paintings, though, I have learned to at least give them some time. Most grow on me.
That said, it’s all well and good to say that “artists thought they had done all they could with representational art and so moved on”, but IMO, they haven’t. I would like very much to see the type of brush work that Vermeer did or the absolute silken sheen of a woman’s cloak that Salvoldo did in a painting of Mary Magdalene. I would like to see some skilled representational art–it seems to me that drawing and anatomy are no longer taught. What of perspective and shading for landscapes? I love landscapes (hate still lifes, though).
(I didn’t know these painting off the top of my head (not all of them)–I did look in an art book I have laying around.)
I’ve never been to art school, but I do believe that figure drawing and anatomy are a pretty basic requirement at most studio art programs. My brother, at least, had courses that covered these areas, as well as shading, perspective, etc., all the classical disciplines associated with basic drawing and painting. Just because you don’t see it in the work of student artists doesn’t mean it’s not being taught.
What would lead you to draw this conclusion? Do you have any basis for it? If you saw the bulk of the stuff produced by art students you’d probably draw a different conclusion.
Figure drawing is alive and well, and being taught.
Here are two realists for you, right off the bat:
Madison, Wisconsin artist Robert Schultz, whose tight pencil drawings are even better in person. He’s represented by Printworks gallery in Chicago.
and James Werner, who’s running a small, successful art school dedicated to classical realism. His website includes several links to related sites.
You might also find The Palette and Chisel of Chicago interesting. They host quite a few “vanity shows” where the work is sometimes poor; however, their instructors’ work is outstanding.
I’ll also point out that abstract art is totally mainstream at this point and a bit old fashioned. The current avant garde is thoroughly representational.
Speaking as someone halfway through a BFA I can tell you that you’re wrong. In fact the Drawing III class at my school has anatomy tests that you have to take. This is my painting teacher’s site. You can see he does a lot of representational art. (NSFW btw–most of it is nudes)
When it comes down to it, art is all about pretty pictures. If you like it, fine. If you don’t like it, fine.
Holding certain works of art up as being better than another based on criteria that seem supefluous or transient, or worse, pretentious, is the problem I have with art.
Art shouldn’t be an investment, it shouldn’t be about how much money you an scam off it. If people set that aside, I think most art wouldn’t be so deliberately avant garde and annoying.
That’s fine, if that’s all YOU want to “see” in art, GuanoLad – what I don’t understand is why people such as yourself insist that nothing more is present.
That’s like me pointing to a skyscraper and proclaiming that it’s made of windows, because windows are all that I see. “Engineers?” Buncha geeks.
I’m not particularly well educated about art, and I usually don’t like going along with the mainstream, but during a trip to Spain I found that the really famous artists are famous for a reason. I visited several art galleries and saw some famous pieces, so famous that even I knew a few of them by name. There were some paintings I didn’t know that also drew me across the room from wherever I was browsing.
I always try to look at the art before I read the card or any other material about it, and I was surprised to find that very little of the really compelling stuff was obscure. I’d guess that maybe 2 out of every 10 pieces that did something to draw my attention were things that were done by artists famous enough for me to have heard of. I guess to stand out in a collection of other work done by people good enough to rate wall space in a museum, you really do have to be special.
There was a whole section at one museum for the artist Juan Gris (I had to google him to find his name using associated facts I remember from the museum) with dozens and dozens of paintings by him. He was doing essentially the same thing as Picasso, but there’s a reason that Picasso is more famous. The Gris exhibition would have benefitted from some culling instead of putting up every piece of canvas they happened to have, but even so, there were only a few paintings that I felt anything about. When I saw some Picassos at the same museum on the other hand — wow, just, wow. Picasso’s moderate stuff was usually more compelling than Gris’s best.
I did have a few surprises too. I had seen a few pictures of Mondrian pieces on the internet that I liked. I thought they were pleasant, abstract, nice, even interesting sometimes. I found that I don’t care for his stuff in person. It’s well done, definitely nothing that “a kid could do”, but I just didn’t find it anywhere near as interesting as I thought I would. A Pollock was the only thing on a wall at a smaller private museum in Madrid that made me want to look for longer than a few seconds. There is a feeling of depth and weight to it that you probably wouldn’t get second-hand. Yeah, it’s splatters of paint on canvas, but, man, is it interesting to look at. I had heard of Jackson Pollock because he’s famous and there was a movie about him not too long ago. Saw some stuff on the net, and thought it looked like someone dripping paint on the floor while repainting a room. Saw two paintings in person and totally changed my opinion.
Like I said in the other thread, I have a hole in my head for art appreciation. Feel free to dismiss me. But…
Wow. Some of the people in this thread can get so much out of some colors. I can only imagine what sort of sensory overload occurs when they watch movies, listen to music, or play a video game.
I am glad to hear it. When I have gone to art galleries and see lots and lots of abstract stuff, 3-D stuff and “installations”, but no representational art–I started to wonder. What I should have said was that I hope that it is still taught and emphasized.
What I still don’t understand is why artists don’t do more of it for their work. There is nothing wrong with portraiture or painting allegories etc. I just don’t see that in the art galleries I frequent. (not that I am going frequently-I’d say about once or twice a year). I did happen to view a wonderful artist (local) who does fantastic pen and ink sketches of forests as Gothic cathedrals. Sounds too sentimental and almost kitschy, but (to me) they weren’t. If I could have afforded one, I would have bought one!
I didn’t mean to offend anyone with my comments; hope I didn’t.
This may get me laughed out of the thread, but the Sister Wendy series did a lot ot get me interested in more modern art. She’s an odd duck, but I liked her shows on PBS. My kids love her Christmas book (different artists from different eras depict the Nativity). It may not be erudite and all that, but she introduced me to art I never would have looked at otherwise…
The short–blunt–answer is because they’re not doing it for you. Or rather, to the extent that they *are * doing it for you, to that extent they’re not an artist.
We, she has suffered from depression in the past. As someone pointed out, the paintings in the Rothko chapel were done right before he committed suicide. I think she picked up on that vibe particularly strongly and it made her very uncomfortable.
No. Art is something that expresses something for the artist, and invokes some reaction on the audience.
It could be simply the sharing of a pretty image - that’s certainly a valid response, but I don’t think you can say that this isn’t art, either. I don’t think I like Pies for a Passerby, but it is something that does make me think, about a lot of things, including what constitutes art. So, in that manner, it does achieve the objectives of a work of art, in my mind.
Similarly, the one-way mirrored toilet in the UK, and apparantly now similar works in other locations, is another piece of work that has an effect less because of the static parts of the piece, but because of how it challenges the audience.
Mind you, I don’t see how the crayon piece mentioned upthread can evoke much of a response from an audience, unless they’re familiar with the artist already. I certainly can’t say that I’m getting the same reaction to some of the pieces mentioned in this thread that some others are coming up with. But that doesn’t mean that I doubt their reactions. Different works are going to affect different people.
