# What do you think of this argument re. modern art? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 1, 2007, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390 "2007-02-01T06:40:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/1 "2007-02-01T06:40:12Z")
Check out [this article](http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/IA30Aa03.html). The author’s tone becomes unbearingly condescending towards the end, but I’m interested in his central argument about the relative popularity of modernist art vs. atonal music. The crux of it: > [@](#): > > Why is it that the audience for modern art is quite happy to take in the ideological message of modernism while strolling through an art gallery, but loath to hear the same message in the concert hall? It is rather like communism, which once was fashionable among Western intellectuals. They were happy to admire communism from a distance, but reluctant to live under communism. > > When you view an abstract expressionist canvas, time is in your control. You may spend as much or as little time as you like, click your tongue, attempt to say something sensible and, if you are sufficiently pretentious, quote something from the Wikipedia write-up on the artist that you consulted before arriving at the gallery. When you listen to atonal music, for example Schoenberg, you are stuck in your seat for a quarter of an hour that feels like many hours in a dentist’s chair. You cannot escape. You do not admire the abstraction from a distance. You are actually living inside it. You are in the position of the fashionably left-wing intellectual of the 1930s who made the mistake of actually moving to Moscow, rather than admiring it at a safe distance. I suspect there’s a grain of truth there. What do you think? (And for the record, I like some Kandinsky – I think the author could have picked a more noxious candidate to represent modern art, though of course that would have messed up his historical parallel…) ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/2 "2007-02-01T06:52:45Z")
I don’t know if either of them is popular. You don’t see people putting installations of sliced cold cuts above their sofas. “Oh honey, look how the mortadella brings out the color of the sofa”. Modern art exists because of public funding and endowments to private organizations. The people who decide where the money go are either way more sophisticated than I am, just won’t admit the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes, or take turns doling out money to each other. I think the last is the more likely. That said, I think that appreciation of music is formed while young and hard to change. I want to pull my hair out when I hear middle-eastern and most Asian music. ---
**Author:** ![RTA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b4bc9f/32.png) [@RTA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTA)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/3 "2007-02-01T14:04:41Z")
Yes, one can stroll around a gallery and spend time with the pieces one likes and shun the ones one does not. At a concert of experimental contemporary music, you’re stuck in the chair and basically a hostage of the program and if you don’t like it you have to draw attention to yourself by walking out. Convenience dictates audience: in this way the author is correct. In other ways he is an uninformed philistine making broad potshots. > [@DanBlather](#): > > You don’t see people putting installations of sliced cold cuts above their sofas. I would beg to differ. [www.wallartweb.com/artists/2007/paine.html](http://www.wallartweb.com/artists/2007/paine.html) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/4 "2007-02-01T14:34:57Z")
I’ve found most books that seek to explain modern art to be incredibly condescending (“Here is a realistic piece of art now seen as hopelessly sentimental and an abstract work. Which artist do you think used his imagination _more_?”). They’re useful for the factual information in them, but unsatisfying. I think there’s a lot more truth in Wolfe’s _The Painted Word_ than people like to admit. Nevertheless, there’s a lot of modern art that I dio like. As for music – when you think about it, it’s about as abstract an art as there is. Nothing is representational. The music we like is what we are, to large extent, conditioned to. Modern music of all sorts(not just atonal) isn’t what most of us are conditioned to. I’ve played some very weird stuff in concert band. It’s interesting because it’s different, and in some cases I could see the point. But there’s no way I’d ever put this stuff on my sound system to listen to, either seriously or as background music. But that’s not because I have a fear or revulsion of anything “modern” – I’m just as unlikely to put on Chinese Opera of Chinese violin music (using traditional tuning and styles), because it does as little for me. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/5 "2007-02-01T18:44:09Z")
I think music has a more fundamental impact on people emotionally than paintings do. I’ve been entranced by various paintings, I’ve admired them and been fascinated by them and have even been left awestruck by them, but I don’t remember ever being truly shaken emotionally the way I have by numerous musical pieces. And even when I have felt a strong emotion from a painting (joy, arousal, sadness, fear), it never seemed as long-lasting as the residual emotional impact of a song or symphony or aria that would resonate in my head for days afterwards. I think most people simply process the two stimuli (visual, aural) differently and one pushes more buttons than others–probably because, in part, most people tend to listen to music recreationally but not look at pictures the same way (or if they do, it’s photographic pictures that are consumed recreationally/casually and register more in us emotionally). Just my $0.02. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/6 "2007-02-01T18:58:58Z")
If the argument were really correct, then people wouldn’t buy modern art prints to hang in their homes. Yet many such prints are bought, so the argument is wrong… ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/7 "2007-02-01T19:06:27Z")
Ears are much harder to turn off than eyes. We don’t have earlids, and we can’t just turn away from music that we don’t like. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/8 "2007-02-01T19:09:59Z")
[QUOTE=Bippy the Beardless] If the argument were really correct, then people wouldn’t buy modern art prints to hang in their homes. Yet many such prints are bought, so the argument is wrong.. [/QUOTE] Not necessarily. The people who buy the posters sre those for whom the art is worth the time. Others don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/9 "2007-02-01T21:58:46Z")
[QUOTE=silenus] Not necessarily. The people who buy the posters sre those for whom the art is worth the time. Others don’t. [/QUOTE] But those that don’t buy the posters also mostly don’t go to art shows and admire the modern art. Simply modern art is more accessable to people than atonal music. It isn’t because you can switch off the art, but can’t switch off the music. To most people the art is on a poster and the music on a cd, both equally possible to avoid, yet very few people care to buy a single cd of atonal music, and many many less buy 2 cds. ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/10 "2007-02-01T22:48:46Z")
Well, I know very little about atonal music. I think it would be fair to say that I know nothing. I am, however, a collector of art, some of it abstract, all of it modern (as in, created within the last century.) I think the author is a bit of a twit. I DO actually like my abstract pieces, otherwise I wouldn’t have bought them. His opinion as to if I like them or not strikes me as absurd. I do know that some people try to collect art as an investment - however, unless you’re buying Picasso’s, art as an investment is a bit of a crap shoot. It’s impossible to guess who’s going to be the next big thing - sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t. Because of this, I think that most people that collect art choose pieces because they actually _LIKE_ them aesthetically , irrespective of the symbolic meaning of the piece. I have to submit that somebody, somewhere likes atonal music. The entire article reads as if written by one who dropped out of art school because he couldn’t take the pressure.\* \*Written as someone who dropped out of art school because she couldn’t be arsed to finish. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/11 "2007-02-01T23:24:36Z")
Actually, it sounds to me like an article written in the 1950s. If he thinks Picasso is “modern” art, he’s more than half a century behind the times. I heard arguments like that when I was in high school, and they didn’t seem reasonable then and they seem even less valid 40 years later. He doesn’t like Schoenberg? Generally, when you go to hear an orchestra, you have an idea what they’re going to play: so, don’t go to the ones you don’t like. There are not so many people who go to the symphony nowadays, and those that do aren’t put off by Schoenberg or Stravinsky. What, he wasnt the symphony to be limited to pre-Brahms? Who else counts as “modern” music: the Beatles? rapsters? How out of touch is he? ---
**Author:** ![Idlewild](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8491ac/32.png) [@Idlewild](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idlewild)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/12 "2007-02-02T04:42:08Z")
I can’t imagine how much _more_ unbearably condescending it could have been at the end when I couldn’t choke my way past the first paragraph. I really don’t care to be told what I do or do not actually like. If there’s value in the article, it’s pretty well hidden under the arrogant crap. ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/13 "2007-02-02T04:49:49Z")
[QUOTE=Idlewild] If there’s value in the article, it’s pretty well hidden under the arrogant crap. [/QUOTE] Don’t worry - there’s not much value. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/14 "2007-02-02T05:00:23Z")
[QUOTE=Idlewild] I can’t imagine how much _more_ unbearably condescending it could have been at the end when I couldn’t choke my way past the first paragraph. I really don’t care to be told what I do or do not actually like. If there’s value in the article, it’s pretty well hidden under the arrogant crap. [/QUOTE] Admit it, Idlewild – you really like that article. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Idlewild](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8491ac/32.png) [@Idlewild](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idlewild)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/15 "2007-02-02T10:56:13Z")
[QUOTE=Rodgers01] Admit it, Idlewild – you really like that article. 😃 [/QUOTE] Ooh. That was bad! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/16 "2007-02-02T12:43:48Z")
I’ve never consciously heard a piece of atonal music but I imagine it could be interesting as long as it has melodies and rhythms and such - keys and tones to me seem artificial but I also fear they might self-consciously reject other musical conventions that I do enjoy. I only own one piece of modern art that I got when I helped a modern artist move her stuff. To tell you the truth I don’t really enjoy it, but the angle in which it hangs on my wall (it’s a fabric piece,) contrasting with the other parts of my room does make it interesting to look at, but I’m not sure if it’s the artist or my arrangement of it that does that. So I can’t really comment on the core truths of the piece due to my ignorance of modern music. But nearly all modern visual art doesn’t really do much for me except by mistake. Oh, and I don’t buy the argument of not being able to tune out music. Not everyone approaches art by total immersion. Who are we to say that tuning music in in the background while you do other things is not a valid approach to appreciating art? In that case one is not beholden to the music the way the article implies. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/17 "2007-02-02T12:49:17Z")
> [@](#): > > Actually, it sounds to me like an article written in the 1950s. If he thinks Picasso is “modern” art, he’s more than half a century behind the times. I heard arguments like that when I was in high school, and they didn’t seem reasonable then and they seem even less valid 40 years later. One of my beefs about the condescending nature of books on Modern Art is that one of them cvalled virtually everything since the Renaissance “Modern Art.” By that standard, Hogarth and Constable were “Modern Art” (and Picasso was a shoo-in). Way to define the issue out of existence ---
**Author:** ![Logan\_5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/fbc32d/32.png) [@Logan\_5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Logan_5)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/18 "2007-02-02T19:17:39Z")
Careful not to confuse “modern” with “contemporary”. Modern art, or rather Modernism pretty much ended as a movement/era in the mid twentieth century. Picasso is most certianly Modern art, but not contemporary. Also “modern” as applied to art since the Renaissance refers to the movement towards the celebration of the secular, the everyday, as opposed to religious themes. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/19 "2007-02-02T23:45:43Z")
Assuming that he’s using the definition of “modern art” to mean the modernist movement, say 1910 - 1940, give or take… Why bother now? I mean, imagine an essay arguing that German music from 1700 - 1740 is hard to listen to? And let’s roundly condemn those damn pre-Renaissance painters who never got perspective right! … I’m just sayin’, seem to be an essay that’s pretty much out of date. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2007, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390/20 "2007-02-03T09:05:59Z")
Dude’s ignorant. I’m a huge Schoenberg fan, have loved his music (and Webern’s and Berg’s) since I was 11 years old. I only _wish_ I could go hear it in the concert hall. They don’t play it, so it’s CDs for me. And, FWIW, I love _modern_ art, too. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-this-argument-re-modern-art/390390.md?page=2)