First in a potential long running series of help the Sass appreciate the finer things in life, courtesy of the resident little cecils here
Ok, I admit I there must be something wrong with me, but why do I not appreciate paintings? I just am not moved by them. The ones by Giotto, or Botticelli, I recognize as achievements in craftsmanship, I just don’t get it. Why are they so awe inspiring to be priceless, (outside of their historical value, there i understand why it is valuable for that one)? I just don’t get – I get a feeling in a museum, for lesser but still valuable older works, that nice painting, I could never paint anything myself, but still, i just dont get the big deal.
Not to mention modern art, which I hold in utter contempt as something I could do, like throwing paint randomly on a canvas and calling it ‘art’ because of the randomness of the world or such things.
But back to the old masters, I don’t get it, how good are they supposed to be? Are people getting catharsis from watching these, like a good movie? how can i learn to appreciate?
H. L. Mencken didn’t care for painting, either. He believed that art wasn’t art unless it moved. Music moves, novels move, theater moves, but paintings just sit still on the wall there. Your taste may match his.
I am a huge art junkie - going to a museum or gallery is like going to church for me. I don’t think you should beat yourself up for not appreciating it just like I don’t beat myself up for not getting any feelings about going to church. There are people who get a rush going to a sports game. And there are people who are moved at concerts.
Everyone feels differently for different things.
I get nothing out of prayer or religion or anything secular, but there are paintings which can bring on a torrent of tears and emotion (Turner and the Monet Parliament series, specifically).
There are so many periods in art history, and I have to admit, the OP mentioned periods that don’t exactly excite me either. The “Old Masters” pretty much bore me, and there’s a lot of “Modern Art” that is just crap. But there are other periods that include some of the most gorgeous paintings ever done. My favorite museum is the *Musée d’Orsay *in Paris. It includes paintings, sculpture and other arts from the Impressionist period through the early 20th Century. I go there every time I’m in Paris, and it’s like a new experience every time.
You may not have found your niche yet. Go to museums and galleries (not all “modern” art is paint thrown at a canvas). Seeing paintings “live” is way better than seeing them in reproductions. Take a course in Art History or a general course in Art Appreciation.
Or . . . why not take a class in painting, yourself? If you don’t like other people’s paintings, learn how to make your own.
And don’t feel like you “have to” like paintings just because they’re old or famous.
Maybe you can’t see all the colors? I read about this somewhere at SDMB: not everyone sees the same colors as everybody else, and women are more sensitive to different shades than men.
When I see great art, I am blown away by the genius of the work. For example, when I look at Van Gogh’s Starry Starry Night, I can’t imagine the thinking process required to put the colors next to each other the way he did. I like to look closely to see the details, and then pull back to appreciate the overall effect. I also like to question myself about why an artist did something the way he did, and to figure out what effect they were trying to achieve. Recently, for example, I went to a Wyland gallery. I’m surprised at the color choices he used to achieve effects of light.
I think a trip to the Uffizi is required or just back to your own elementary school. Art is hard to do well and you can see it well. You need to see how art evolved from two-dimensional flat representations to accurately reproducing what we actually see (using a variety of techniques including perspective, muscle tone, “gentle” eyes, emphasizing where we should look in an image). And then incorporating all sorts of symbols and references to Greece/Rome, the bible, their patrons, local clergy, and the pantheon of gods.
I recommend you pay for the headset next time you go to a museum. They will tell you some of the things to look for. Additionally, I don’t think I have ever seen a picture that could do justice to the feeling of life (or death) of the real image. “American Gothic” and “Mona Lisa” epitomize this. The former looks like a cartoon while in person it seems like it was painted on the worn wooden paneling of your grandmother’s country kitchen. Images of the latter show all of these background trees and fields, but in person you can’t look anywhere else but her face, your eyes are drawn to her and don’t stray.
I also think that seeing a collection of a single artist together really helps as you can see his/her style evolve and also what flourishes appear in every piece (There is one “too brightly” colored ribbon or item in every Renoir painting, for instance.)
I believe you just haven’t found that thing to bring you in yet. For me a single painting just clicked, Solidity of Fog and I found it magical. The entire painting is literally blue; but with different shades and skills unimaginable to me, Russolo tells an entire story in what he shows and doesn’t and how his audience perceives his art.
I recognize that this is not all about the old masters you inquire about, but look at medieval art and then at the famous guys and realize that the leap was made in just a few generations (if not just one).
Art is only art when it evokes an emotion in you. I am moved by a lot of painting but a whole lot just bores me. I feel the same about music, sculpture etc etc.
The old masters in some respects are interesting rather than moving. Once you look at the paintings and understand what the artist was trying to tell you through symbolism it takes you on a whole new journey.
Don’t worry if you don’t like them, shorter queues for the rest of us.
Take a step back from art. Do you like looking at a beautiful sunset or a beautiful person? If you saw a painting of that, would it still be beautiful for you?
With modern art, a lot of its impact comes from, to use the title of a very good art book, The Shock of the New. There is a gallery owner here in the UK called Charles Saatchi who puts on very stimulating and provocative exhibitions of modern Art.
In both cases, for me, what I’m looking for is something that stimulates, moves, interests or excites me. If it can achieve that, then, for me, it is good. Sometimes the sheer pleasure comes from the beauty of it, at other times it is a sense of wonderment at the imagination or technique of the artist. See if the art can stir something in you; it doesn’t matter what the emotion is or how you are intellectually stimulated – it’s the impact that counts.
This is the only painting that I really “got”. That is, it’s the only painting that I could sit and admire and meditate on. I can’t really explain it. Something about it, one ordinary life, set against the cosmic glory of a sunrise. Something like that.
No other painting affects me so much. And I don’t know why.
You don’t have to, or you are just looking at the wrong things - for you.
Art is meant to inspire something in you. I find even pieces you find disgusting are art in a way - they made you react, didn’t they?
But if the piece doesn’t make you react at all, then it’s just not for you. Try a different style. Try modern art, I have to admit there’s something different to it. Or some other periods. I agree, you just haven’t found your niche.
And, if you never do, do you appreciate beauty? Then you have an appreciation of art and don’t need anymore. It’s all voluntary.
We’re both members to the Detroit Institute of Arts and we’ve been talking about spending more time during a visit in a section, as opposed to blowing through it. We usually cram in the entire place in one visit, but instead, we should spend more time at the Rembrandt paintings, take them in more, and see why they’re more special than, say, van Dyck, whose works are in the same hall. The museum does a decent enough job at it as well. They have placards showing things of note in some paintings and why some ordinary looking things are extraordinary because of who did it, its subject, or how they approached it.
Take, for example, possibly my favorite painting of all time, Las Meninas, by Diego Velazquez. At first glance, this is a pretty ordinary work of art. However there’s a lot more than meets the eye that’s going on here. Wikipedia can explain, so I don’t have to type it all out.
Also, there’s Guernicaby Pablo Picasso, and why it’s important, as explained by Wikipedia, as well.
You can almost feel the exhaustion in that painting, can’t you? Sure, it’s just a normal day of work that’s ending, but because it’s put on canvas, it’s almost epic. It almost speaks to some kind of Puritan work ethic. It’s almost like the subject of the painting is the sky and not the woman at the center, almost like this is part of the Romantic movement by Wordsworth.
The ability to put that into words, that next step. To describe why it affects you and what it is about the art is the big leap.
Art is a total farce anyway. Well, let me qualify - I very much respect some artists’ technical skill, imagination, and vision. But I went to the National Gallery once and there was a painting hanging there, maybe about one square foot, that was just one solid color. Really? If I wrote a book that was just one word, would they put it in the Library of Congress?
That painting - and others like - has always caused a lot of controversy. Look at it this way: paintings don’t have to be complicated or difficult. If you get pleasure from a beautiful blue sky, why not capture that beauty in a painting?
Back in caveman days when I was in school, I got to take Art and we had a week of art appreciation, where the teacher would show slides of famous works and explain to us what we were seeing, what to look for, why this painting was important. It was utterly fascinating and all too short. One week of interesting stuff. (We did get four full years of gym, algebra, diagramming sentences, trigonometry, and other assorted horseshit, but I am grateful for that art class.) I suppose schools don’t teach this kind of thing any more, or music appreciation classes, either. Pity. When we were buying framed prints to put up on our walls, we spent hours and hours at places like allposters.com and picked out some things that surprised our friends and relatives (whose taste ran to Elvis plates, Thomas Kincaide, and purty pictures of flowers).
I’m completely with you…I myself like landscapes, but my artist sister is always bashing my “unsophisticated” taste in defense of the Mark Rothkos and Barnett Newmans.
Well, it is not quite a farce. That painting *did * evoke a response in you, didn’t it? You still remember it and whatever its purpose, it stuck with you and sometimes, that is all art has to do.
One word in the Library of Congress? Not too far-fetched considering they will be adding Twitterisms - according to Salon.
I agree with this. For me, for instance, everything up until (but not including) about Cezanne’s The Bather bores the hell out of me. For whatever reason, it’s modern art that resonates with me and holds my interest. At the very least, I prefer abstraction to literalism and non-representational art to representational.
At any rate, you just find what moves or interests you, and if nothing does, that’s fine, too.
I hate to be a philistine about art like that, because I’m really rather open-minded about others’ conception of art, but unless you apply a lot more skill than a a single solid color to a small canvas, you can’t capture a beautiful blue sky. A blue sky is not a single color. There are always gradations of light influenced by the air, the position of the sun, clouds, altitude, etc. It takes a true awareness to capture even the simplest subject in nature (if you’re talking about any sort of realism, of course.) Hell, even if it’s just a study of color, a small canvas like that isn’t enough to invite contemplation. It’s…a tile. Nothing more.
