Yes, I think good musical works affect something intrinsic in us as humans, regardless of their place in history and whether they are trying to communicate something.
On the other hand homeopathy only has an effect on us due to suggestion.
On the third hand, I like this apple that I’m eating now. But that doesn’t mean it’s special, I like most apples.
So, which of these examples is our appreciation of Onement VI most similar to, and why do you think so?
Then you really aren’t getting the point. Enjoying a painting isn’t like belief in the actual existence of a deity. Nobody (except you) is claiming that artistic merit is some kind of objective quality, or that there is some kind of factual, universal answer to the question of whether Newman’s painting has intrinsic artistic merit. Nobody thinks you’d be “dissing” their enjoyment of Newman’s painting just by stating that you personally don’t like it.
So when you say you’re being “skeptical”, you’re not bravely questioning anyone’s dogma. You’re just accusing people who disagree with your opinion, as Miller noted, of being either idiots or liars.
The fact that you see your role in this discussion as that of the heroic clear-thinking atheist courageously questioning superstitious dogma and being persecuted for it illustrates the extent to which, as I said, reverse snobbery is founded in conceit.
Wordman, I agree with everything you wrote in your last post.
I am still curious about why people are so moved by the paintings. I don’t exclude myself from this group, I can also appreciate abstract art to some degree. Is it the painting themselves that cause it, or is it the spirit surrounding them? People can feel drunk without drinking alcohol if you tell them they did drink alcohol. Maybe people can feel this sense of being moved because we tell them that this painting has that effect. Maybe most simple combinations of colors and shapes have the potential to give us the sense of being moved if presented right. Or maybe only a few, thoughtfully put together by the artists do. I’m curious about which of these is correct.
It’s all of them. It creates an interesting sensory experience as you stand in front of it … AND it’s interesting on a conceptual level as a statement about what constitutes art … AND it’s interesting on a historical level as an important stage in the ongoing dialog of art … AND its a status marker for the person who possesses it … AND it’s a commodity that can be bought and sold.
It’s impossible to say which of these things is the True Essence of the work because which one dominates depends on who’s looking at it and in what context.
I agree with all of the last ANDs. But I’m questioning the one about that “it creates an interesting sensory experience”. Maybe it doesn’t, maybe we only think that because of suggestion. I am not questioning why it would be worth whatever it’s worth. I’m just curious about what is the cause of this sensory experience, that after all is the originator of the other factors.
Hey, cool.
And the Ongoing Conversation about Art cares about whether folks feel the need to debate it for a long freakin’ period of time 
Seriously! The fact that the question of Color Field art is still something we can debate passionately? That’s the whole point - to get you thinking about what Art is - to you and to others.
The Conversation has its desired effect. Is there an element of Emperor Has No Clothes? Jeez, isn’t their always? And yeah, the more an artist steps away from Art = Craft/Thing and puts their entire “statement” on Art as Idea, the much bigger risk they are taking, toying with how far the Idea of Art can be pushed.
Some folks love the thought of discussing and seeing how differently Art as Idea can be twisted. And some folks think it is hooey made up by poopyheads. Most Modern Art is somewhere in between those two ends…isn’t that usually the case with stuff like this?
The perceptive act cannot be divorced from the circumstances of perception. There are no neutral viewers whose experience is untainted by “suggestions” of what a work of art should be.
Interestingly, one of the original motivations behind the abstract art movement was to purify art in the manner you describe – to strip away all of the “suggestions” implicit in representation and reduce the work to pure color in space. After all, if I look at a picture of a pretty girl, part of my experience is shaped by what I think of pretty girls. Do I like the painting as a painting, or just because I like pretty girls? My response is not shaped purely by the work itself, but also by the real world thing that the work is pointing to. Wouldn’t it be truer and purer to create a work that is nothing but color and composition? It doesn’t point to anything real, and is therefore uncontaminated by the viewer’s preconceptions … .
I don’t have any feelings towards the people in representational art most of the time. I can also look out my window to look at people were I so inclined. Perhaps i don’t want the art I consume to free ride off the feelings other people do (or do not) produce.
It is certainly possible that subtle variations on one theme in representational art can produce very different experiences. Supposedly this is what Monet’s series of 25 haystacks does. For my part, I simply don’t see it. To me, they’re all just haystacks. The quality of the light, etc is lost on me. Haystacks on Mars would still be haystacks.
Quick update to this thread with two points:
What is relevant to this thread is that Turrell is kinda like Color Field painters - but even does away with canvas or other concrete surface. Turrell works with light - natural and man-made - and mirrors and room shapes to create floating shapes that are meant to perplex your perceptions - your senses, your mind, your whole system. I have not seen his works in person, but folks who love it describe the same sense of “neurons firing” that I was trying to describe in this thread - Turrell seems to have taken it a step further.
So his works appear to be interesting entries into the further discussions about What is Art? If folks are still up for this discussion, I would be interested in impressions - overall, and vs. the Color Field art we’ve been discussion. Is his stuff “more” Art-y? Less? Equally confounding?
Now, just to cause trouble for myself as someone who has been arguing for an open mind in this thread, this painting - the word OOF in yellow against a blue background - is one I struggle with. It doesn’t affect my sensory systems like Color Field or Turrell works (again, I haven’t seen Turrell in person, but you get the idea) - it is meant to ask you to look at the word differently. “I like the idea of a word becoming a picture, almost leaving its body, then coming back and becoming a word again” says Ruscha “I see myself working with two things that don’t even ask to understand each other.”
Yeah - doesn’t really work for me - but I like other works of his, and clearly, his word paintings have been part of the Ongoing Conversation about Art for a few decades - so the fact that they don’t work for me…well, all part of the conversation…
Carry on.
That “OOF” is kinda interesting from a technical point of view, as it looks like he painted the blue field around the letters, rather than painting the letters over it. That might mean… something, but I’m not sure what.
It’s horribly ugly, though.
Just to get a somewhat better idea of what he was up to, this link is to Ruscha’s online catalogue raisonne (this is the 1963 page with “OOF”). I think it helps with context, and shows how his art fit in with Roy Lichtenstein’s and other pop artists. Other years are available by clicking on the timeline at the left of the page.
As a poet, not a visual artist, I feel great sympathy for those in the thread who are trying to explain what art can be to those who just want art to conform. I’ll admit that by the time the fourth or fifth person came in just to declare it was trash, I started skimming.
The painting is beautiful, but mostly for me it’s just because of color and those ragged wobbles that make it more tactile than a pure even application of paint would be.
I wouldn’t mind seeing this and I haven’t been to the Guggenheim in years. If you’ve got some time, WordMan, I will save it for when you are in town. 
I like your thinking. I’ll ping you offboard.
I read this as ***“then I realized we already have four or five Rothkos” ***
(said with slightly-embarrassed ennui… and a Back Bay Niles Crane-esque accent)
Because the Jewish mafia likes to pick very artistic ways to launder money.
Goodbye, dude.
Rich people can spend as much money as they like for obvious crap, and their syncophants can make up whatever stories they like about it, but I’m free not to buy it and I don’t.
The singer, not the song.
To me it looks like someone hung a blue ping-pong table on the wall.
If you can come up with a way to get $44 m for it then more power to ya.