# Please explain to me how this is art **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 22, 2006, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086 "2006-01-22T06:55:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/21 "2006-01-22T18:49:46Z")
> [@yBeayf](#): > > Does there ever come a point where a particular work, say something like Duchamp’s urinal or Warhol’s soup can, or that one artist up in New York with the decomposing cow, can no longer be considered to be art, as it is solely about the concept and no longer about the artist putting forth a visual, and hopefully beautiful, reflection of reality? Should we come up with a new name for this, something like “conceptualism”, to distinguish it from stuff like Michelangelo or Monet? I think people would be a lot more accepting of this kind of stuff if it were clear that the purpose isn’t to communicate a visual experience, but to create a concrete representation of a concept. Interesting concept - sorry, couldn’t resist - but I see where you are going. I would be interested in hearing from artists and/or folks involved in the business of art on this… **Shodan** - sorry, but you’re simply flat-out wrong. You’re telling me that you’ve never learned more about a certain type of art and developed a newfound appreciation for something you didn’t like before? Not possible. Personally, I can think of countless examples of music, art, movies, poetry, etc. where as I invested more time to learn about the medium, I ended up liking things that I didn’t understand before. Hearing someone explain about old-style country blues completely changed how I listened to Robert Johnson and Son House. Hearing someone compare and contrast Piero Della Francesca with, say, Botticelli, completely changed how I regarded each. Ultimately, art must appeal to one’s soul - and that should require no explanation. But if through one’s own closed-mindedness, _they don’t allow access to their soul_, then the art isn’t even given a chance. Sometimes, learning more about art is simply results in the opening of your mind to allow your soul to be touched. Think about it. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/22 "2006-01-22T18:54:30Z")
Some years ago a children’s art contest recieved a finger painting from one “D. James Orang, aged five.” This painting, entitled _Train From Tokyo_, was a colorful mass of brightly colored primary and secondary paint strokes. Sucker took first prize. And then it was revealed that D. James Orang, while indeed five years old, was not human, but an orangutan known as Djkarta Jim, from our Topeka Zoo. I don’t know if the prize was revoked or not, but after that Jim’s paintings made enough money from amused Topekans that they helped pay for a mate. Jim is gone now, but his legacy lives on. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/23 "2006-01-22T18:58:42Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > If it has to be explained, it isn’t good art. > > Regards, > Shodan So all art should be accessible to the dumbest person to see it, in order to be “good”? Most television makes a point of pandering, and we call it “crap”. > [@MGibson](#): > > Jackson Pollock and Robert Ryman, I’m looking at you. I see no intelligible subject in most of their work. If bright colorful prints are all that’s required of art then they might as well just hang up swatches of wallpaper in the museum. > > I’m sure someone will come by an explain to me that modern art must be taken in context and that I simply lack the necessary knowledge to appreciate it. Perhaps, but that doesn’t make it art. I have zero patience with this attitude. Your failure to to understand or appreciate it certainly doesn’t make it \*\*not \*\* art. Taste is subjective, and if you don’t like it, that’s valid. There’ s lots of abstract expressionism that I love, and a fair amount that I don’t. Like any other genre, and like any other medium, there are practitioners that are more or less talented or skillful than others. But the willful ignorance involved in dismising an entire movement as “I don’t get it, and as such, it sucks.” is baffling to me. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/24 "2006-01-22T19:04:20Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > Some years ago a children’s art contest recieved a finger painting from one “D. James Orang, aged five.” This painting, entitled _Train From Tokyo_, was a colorful mass of brightly colored primary and secondary paint strokes. > > Sucker took first prize. And then it was revealed that D. James Orang, while indeed five years old, was not human, but an orangutan known as Djkarta Jim, from our Topeka Zoo. I don’t know if the prize was revoked or not, but after that Jim’s paintings made enough money from amused Topekans that they helped pay for a mate. Jim is gone now, but his legacy lives on. Which is a completely adequate response to **Wordman** ’s point. Did learning about this “artist” make a difference to what the “art” was supposed to be communicating? If it did, then what the critics thought was in the “art” in the first place wasn’t really there. If it didn’t, then my point stands, and good art need not, and cannot, be explained. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![fluiddruid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/25 "2006-01-22T19:15:12Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > OK. You’re obnoxious. > > There. What do I win? Keep it civil, and do not insult other posters in this forum **friedo**. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/26 "2006-01-22T19:15:41Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > So all art should be accessible to the dumbest person to see it, in order to be “good”? Most television makes a point of pandering, and we call it “crap”. Most television _is_ crap. So is most art. The only difference is, with popular “art” like television, the tendency is to blame the crappiness on the creator instead of the audience. With modern art, it is the other way around. > [@](#): > > I have zero patience with this attitude. Your failure to to understand or appreciate it certainly doesn’t make it \*\*not \*\* art. > > Taste is subjective, and if you don’t like it, that’s valid. These two sentences are mutually contradictory. Look, most modern art is a put-on. You don’t need any creativity; all you need is the salesmanship to get your “art” labeled as “ironic” or “post-modern”. And the only thing being communicated is “if you don’t like my work, it is because I am better than you”. Some art critics buy into that, or fall for it. Doesn’t mean anything - as you said, it’s all subjective. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/27 "2006-01-22T19:18:13Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > If it has to be explained, it isn’t good art. That’s like saying it isn’t good literature unless you can understand it without going through all that “learning to read” bullshit. I would say that good art is _always_ enhanced by explanation. The problem with simple figurative art is that it’s easy to like it without understanding it. You can _like_ a picture without any explanation. (“Yep, that’s a really pretty bowl of fruit. The artist did a great job of making it look just like a bowl of fruit. Pretty.”) Nothing wrong with that, if that’s enough for you. But you can’t really _appreciate_ the artwork without some grounding in the technical issues of painting (composition, perspective, brush technique, and so on), the context of the artwork both in terms of art history and in terms of the culture at large. And that’s before you even get into issues of commentary of a social or personal nature made by the subject matter of the painting. Nobody knows all this stuff intuitively, you have to have it explained to you sometime, whether before or after viewing the painting. ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/28 "2006-01-22T19:18:44Z")
Ah, more modern art bashing! It takes a lot of guts to take such a controversial position. Didn’t we just have one of these? Shodan-- I could explain to you many, many things about Rembrandt’s Night Watch or the Sistine ceiling or whatever that you did not previously know and that increased your understanding of the subject matter, medium, original context, function, symbolism, etc etc, which would make it even more interesting and give you new perspectives. Van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece communicates a hell of a lot more to me than to you-- things it doesn’t communicated through the mere presence of oil paint on chunks of wood. So is it bad art? Or does that criterium only count for modern art? If it already looks like a cow it’s already ‘good art’ with no explanation? Is realism and ease of digestion the measure of good art? If you don’t like Miro, fine. De gustibus non disputandum. But that doesn’t mean it’s not art. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/29 "2006-01-22T19:21:17Z")
I didn’t know much about Kandinsky before reading this thread, although I’d heard of him and spent a few minutes on [his Wikipedia article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandinsky). After reading a few certain posts in this thread, I checked out his Wikipedia article again, and his work really does it for me. I guess what I like is that it’s chaotic/abstract in a defined, “sharp” way. His WWI and WWII paintings really capture the destructive chaos of war–and also the structuredness of that destruction. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/30 "2006-01-22T19:27:21Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > These two sentences are mutually contradictory. They really aren’t. My dislike of it doesn’t make it crap, any more than my liking of it makes it art. My opinion doesn’t imbue the work with meaning for anyone other than myself. Art isn’t either/or. That’s what makes it art, and not long division. ---
**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:** [January 22, 2006, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/31 "2006-01-22T19:48:22Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Look, most modern art is a put-on. You don’t need any creativity; all you need is the salesmanship to get your “art” labeled as “ironic” or “post-modern”. There may be an element of that in the “art scene,” but those “modern” artists that are considered canonical–I use “modern” loosely, because we are mostly talking about art that’s over 50 years old in this thread–are not there because of salesmanship sans creativity. I mean, there’s no way you can look at Miro, Kandinsky, and Pollock and say their work isn’t the result of talent, hard work, and vision. Some people would look [at this](http://www.wcpn.org/jazz/jazztracks/jazz_destinations/2001/jackson-pollock.jpg) and heckle and say “yeah, I could do something like that in my garage with a couple of buckets of paint.” Go ahead. Try it. I have. I could never in my life make a painting that looked like a Pollock. It just looked like compositionless blotches of paint. Pollock’s work does not look like that. There’s an element of chance in his work, of course, but the compositions and color choices are very orderly. At least to me. I see order within that chaos, and to me it’s pretty obvious. He’s not my favorite artist, but it pisses me off to no end seeing him so unfairly maligned. If you don’t like it, fine. But don’t say there’s no technique or artistic skills involved behind a work like that, because you obviously have no idea what you’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/32 "2006-01-22T19:55:44Z")
> [@honeydewgrrl](#): > > …whether or not I consciously or unconsciously interpret… :smack: SUBconsciously ---
**Author:** ![mrunlucky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7993a0/32.png) [@mrunlucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrunlucky)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/33 "2006-01-22T21:19:59Z")
Miro went through periods in which his art very obviously changed style. Similar to Klee, another Surrealist painter, his work progressed over his lifetime from complex, detailed, and colorful, devolving into simplistic, not very interesting pieces that looked like they were made in about 10 minutes. Is this Miro of which you posted a picture particularly good? Compared to his body of work, that piece, in my opinion, is really poor. It’s the kind of piece that may have been relatively affordable to purchase (as an original), but would have more value _only_ because it’s a Miro, than because it’s necessarily a strong composition. Still, this piece is a terrible example by which to judge the general quality and visionary appeal of Miro’s art. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/34 "2006-01-22T22:04:06Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Some people would look [at this](http://www.wcpn.org/jazz/jazztracks/jazz_destinations/2001/jackson-pollock.jpg) and heckle and say “yeah, I could do something like that in my garage with a couple of buckets of paint.” Go ahead. Try it. I have. I could never in my life make a painting that looked like a Pollock. I think the orangutan example shows that it doesn’t take any talent to create something that some critic will label as good art. > [@](#): > > But don’t say there’s no technique or artistic skills involved behind a work like that, because you obviously have no idea what you’re talking about. See above. The same could have been said of the orangutan’s art. Sometimes the emperor really has no clothes. > [@DianeG](#): > > > [@Shodan](#): > > > > These two sentences are mutually contradictory. > > They really aren’t. Yes, they really are. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/35 "2006-01-22T22:27:47Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I think the orangutan example shows that it doesn’t take any talent to create something that some critic will label as good art. It doesn’t seem to have been expressly stated in the post in which the orangutan example was given; but I would assume from the context given that it wasn’t an art critic who awarded first prize. It was a children’s art contest, which makes me think it wasn’t so much Met as it was PS 173. If you want to criticize the critics, do it. But I don’t think the orangutan example is relevant. ---
**Author:** ![Atticus\_Finch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ec9cab/32.png) [@Atticus\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atticus_Finch)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/36 "2006-01-22T22:31:17Z")
I think that a key point here is that these modern abstract artists had the power to incredibly good representative art, but _chose_ not to do so. Look up some early Picasso, like [this](http://deokjin.ms.kr/jart/picasso/images/self1.jpg), and see how realistic it is. Picasso didn’t paint [people with wonky faces](http://www.artchive.com/artchive/p/picasso/rembrndt.jpg) because he couldn’t draw properly, but because he intentionally went out to break boundaries and create something new and exciting. ---
**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:** [January 22, 2006, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/37 "2006-01-22T22:31:28Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I think the orangutan example shows that it doesn’t take any talent to create something that some critic will label as good art.See above. The same could have been said of the orangutan’s art. But I’m not talking about the orangutan’s art. I’m talking about Pollock, Kandinsky, et al. I’m not an art critic, but when I look at their work I see a mastery of skill. If an orangutan can create work of the complexity of Pollock or Kandinsky or whoever, I’ll eat my hat. Besides, the orangutan example refers to a _children’s art contest_. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/38 "2006-01-22T22:32:18Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > The distinction you’re attempting to draw, **MGibson** , is between what you see as “good art” or “bad art.” There’s not really any question that everything you mentioned is, in fact, art. Art isn’t defined by MGibson’s personal taste; you can only define what \*you \*like or don’t like. As much as I appreciate your condescending attitude, lissener, I am fully aware of the difference between what I like and what I don’t like. As I walked through the Dallas Museum of Art a few weeks ago I observed many works of art that I liked and many others that I did not like. I did not label the art I disliked as “bad art” because it’s largely a matter of personal taste and I could still appreciate the effort the artist put into his or her work. Even if I didn’t like the work I would have been able to identify it as art whether it was hanging on the wall or sitting on the sidewalk outside. The only way to identify many of Jackson Pollock or Robert Ryman works as art is that they’re sitting in a museum. I understand that art isn’t defined by my personal taste but there has to be some definition of art. If it doesn’t have an intelligble subject I don’t believe it’s really art. It might be pretty but it isn’t art. Marc ---
**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:** [January 22, 2006, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/39 "2006-01-22T22:47:11Z")
> [@MGibson](#): > > I understand that art isn’t defined by my personal taste but there has to be some definition of art. If it doesn’t have an intelligble subject I don’t believe it’s really art. It might be pretty but it isn’t art. I consider colors and shapes intelligible subject. See, to me, art should transcend representing objects. To those saying that any talentless hack can make art, I would say any idiot can become a good draftsman. Any idiot can draw what’s in front of them if they practice in try. It takes a special person to have the vision of a Kandinsky or a Pollock or a Miro. That’s art that comes completely from the soul–from beyond what we see in front of us. _That’s_ what I like in my art. I _don’t_ want to see reality. I _don’t_ want to see strict realism. I know what those look like. I work with it every day in my profession. The abstract transcends all this and shows me new ways to look at the world. It gives me something fresh and exciting to look at and to contemplate. Even in my photography work, I take inspiration from non-representational art. I am not saying that one is better than the other–I am simply saying that abstract resonates with my heart and my soul more than pre-20th century art. It honestly moves me. It’s not just some fey affectation or a way to feel superior to others. If you don’t like it, fine. We’ve established that. However, to say it’s somehow just “pretty” and not art is irritatingly condescending. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2006, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086/40 "2006-01-22T22:52:14Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > If it has to be explained, it isn’t good art. I’ve decided that the Chinese have no sense of humor. Everytime I hear a “joke” in Mandarin, I never laugh. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-how-this-is-art/341086.md?page=3)