Trite.
Trite.
In addition to real or imagined occult symbolism, fitl seems to prize in the visual arts a refined, academic technique; prettiness (or is that pettiness?) and cheap, saccharine sentimentality. There is plenty of kitsch art around to satisfy those sugar cravings; others of us crave something more substantial.
Thank you, JCamilo. That is sort of what I was saying. There are some overrated and underrated artists right now at the very least, and a great many excesses which will be considered poor taste in future generations. My personal hunch is that Kiefer and Mondrian will not age as well as others. I am hoping that Stanislaw Szukalski will overtake Henry Moore, Jorge Gonzalez Camarena will outpace Mondrian, and Gottfried Helnwein will overtake Anselm Kiefer. Then Edward Hopper for Paul Klee, Tamara de Lempicka for Mark Rothko, Werner Tubke for Jaspar Johns, Franz Marc for Georges Braque, Odd Nerdrum for Sean Scully, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
Well, a lot of these pairings are odd. Edward Hopper for Paul Klee? Hopper is already esteemed highly, and his place is secure. Several of his works are timelessly iconic. But his and Klee's art really bear no comparison. Klee's reputation is also secure, and I have no doubt it will continue to be so. Same odd pairing with Jorge Gonzalez Camarena and Mondrian. It seems a real apples-and-oranges comparison. Several others, the same. The reputations of Rothko, Braque (co-inventor with Picasso of Cubism, no less) and Johns are secure. Why is it necessary to think in terms of such competitions, as though art were a race or a sporting event? Particuarly when people like Hopper and Klee were playing different games? It's like asking who would win a game between the New York Yankees and the Boston Celtics.
ftil... you seem to like to to look at art through the lens of certain academics... Giordano Bruno and Marsilio Ficino among them... as well as through the filter of Art Therapy. I'll offer you some thoughts by various acadmics/theorists/philosophers with regard to the issue of "beauty".
I personally agree that certain traditional concepts of "beauty" were somewhat eclipsed during the 20th century. Part of this is due, no doubt, to the very real horrors of the 20th century: WWI, WWII, the Holocaust, the genocides of Stalin and Mao, the looming threat of nuclear obliteration. Of course one might point out that in past eras there were events just as horrendous, and yet art did not take on an overwhelmingly dark look. The "Black Death" and the Spanish Inquisition, for example, resulted in some bleak and horrific images such as these two paintings of The Triumph of Death...
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...rte_Dornai.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...o/th_death.jpg
... still a great majority of the art of thixs period looked more like this:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...re_1511_12.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...th_tangere.jpg
Logically, much of this is due to the fact that for better or worse, by the mid 19th century it was the artists and not aristocratic of clerical patrons who were dictating the subject matter of painting... and as many of the most influential artists lived through one of more of the horrors of these recent centuries, we should not be surprised that their art was impacted by these events.
At the same time... there were aesthetic philosophies at play that also impacted the eclipse of traditional "beauty" in Modern art. The art historian, Wendy Steiner, explores these in some detail in her book, Venus in Exile. Among the influences touched upon, there is the writing of Edmund Burke and Emmanuel Kant. Burke offered up a theory of two opposite strains of "beauty". On the one side is "beauty"... that which evokes pleasure... the highest being sexual. Thus the beauty of the female body (assuming a male audience at this time) was considered the greatest beauty. On the opposite end of the spectrum is that art which inspires fear... "shock and awe"... the greatest fear being that of death. Art which spoke of this was defined as the art of the "sublime".
Kant built upon this dichotomy. He suggested that those subjects which are inherently beautiful... pretty flowers, a sunset over a lush landscape... and of course a beautiful woman... had the ability to short-circuit the (again male) audience's ability to judge them intellectually on aesthetic terms. The emotions and passions (especially love, desire, and lust) inspired by the image of a beautiful woman... especially the nude... were recognized as likely to overwhelm man's rational thought and ability to judge art as art.
Theorists who followed Kant pushed the idea further. They linked the rejection of traditional beauty with the misogynistic ideas that were rampant as a result of the increasing demands by women for equal rights as well as the ideas of Freud concerning sex. This was further linked with the Romantic ideas of the artist as an outsider... a visionary... a Bohemian... almost a prophet... in contrast to the Bourgeois and ideas of domesticity... which centered upon women. The architect, Adolf Loos, wrote a manifesto entitled Ornament and Crime in which he dismissed the decorative and the beautiful as only worthy of the lesser thinking of women. His concepts on architecture would impact the Bauhaus and architects such as Mies van der Rohe... and combined with kick-backs from manufacturers, this would result in a lot of the bland, faceless modernist architecture of the latter 20th century. Bauhaus painter, Joseph Albers, would have a similar impact on later American painting through his role as a professor at Yale.
In spite of this, there is plenty of truly traditionally "beautiful" art to be found in the 20th century:
Renoir (active into the 20th century; died 1919)
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8224/8...b19ce33f_m.jpg
Matisse:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...in_assis-3.jpg
Modigliani:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...igliani105.jpg
Raoul Dufy:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...35943728_b.jpg
Sonia Delaunay:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...aunay-1915.jpg
Elie Nadelman:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...e-nadelman.jpg
Gustav Klimt:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...mt-TheKiss.jpg
George Bellows:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...t_M_Miller.jpg
John Singer Sargent:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...artie--L-8.jpg
Edouard Vuillard:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/.../th_Clue2u.jpg
Pierre Bonnard:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...onnard11-1.jpg
Claude Monet (active well into the 20th century; produced some of his most influential "water lilies" murals in the 20th century; died 1926)
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...wl-19062-1.jpg
Edgar Degas (active into the 20th century although declining eye-sight led him to focus mostly on sculpture in his last years; died 1917)
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...esses_1899.jpg
Balthus:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8460/8...9aab6a78_n.jpg
Maillol:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8037/8...cb209877_n.jpg
You will notice not a single artist here is a minor or obscure figure.
So let's return to Robert Coombs and Andrew Atroschenko:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...roshenko12.jpg
Speaking of Atroschenko, who I deemed pure schlock, you responded, "You may call Atroshenko's paintings “pure schlock”. I like this painting as I appreciate beauty." Believe it or not, I actually appreciate "beauty" as well... and I suspect the others here who have admitted to an admiration for some of the knottier works of Modernism also appreciate "beauty" as well. The debate is about how beauty functions in art.
My own paintings would likely be recognized by many as quite "beautiful" by traditional standards. I'm a figurative painter, and my figures are accurate to a great extent... based on an understanding of anatomy... but not "realistic" in the academic sense...closer to William Blake or the artists of the early Italian Renaissance. I tend to employ a harmony of bright colors, a great deal of pattern and gold leaf so that the results are unabashedly decorative. My most important influences range from Persian miniatures, Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, Byzantine, Medieval, and early Renaissance painting, tapestries, Ingres, Gauguin, Bonnard, Modigliani, early Picasso, Matisse, Klimt, Alphonse Mucha, Balthus, Beckmann, and Robert Kushner... with an increasing element of Pop and Post-Pop-Art influenced satire and irony.
My favorite artists of the 20th century, Matisse, Bonnard, Modigliani, and Max Beckmann certainly created some of the most beautiful paintings. Along with these artists, a list of my favorite painters would include Michelangelo, Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas, Raphael, Titian, Veronese, Ingres, Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, and a slew of others who almost anyone would recognize as having produced a wealth of the most "beautiful" paintings. Even if we were to turn to Abstract Expressionism, I would have to admit that my favorite Abstract Expressionist painting is the most sensuous and resplendently colorful painting of the entire era: Arshile Gorky's "The Liver is the ****'s Comb" (The title added after the fact by the French Surrealist poet, Andre Breton):
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/.../th_gorky4.jpg
I say all this to make it clear that I am not "anti-beauty". The problem I have with paintings by Atroschenko is that which Kant feared: the subject may be beautiful... but the art... what the artist brought to the subject is not. The average Playboy centerfold is "beautiful". The girl is likely stunning. The setting and lighting carefully chosen. The satin and lace and velvet fabrics are chosen with the eye of a fashion designer. But the photographer really brings nothing to the subject that leads the viewer to be impressed by the art as much as one is by the subject. Atroschenko, to my eye, handles paint miserably. I am reminded of any number of paintings of Spanish bullfighters and Señoritas sold in bargain furniture stores across the US. His colors are garish and he lacks any sensitivity to touch... let alone originality or sense of composition.
Having said that, let's look at a similar artist, Serge Marshennikov:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8081/8...f9ac783e_n.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8357/8...fcfff906_n.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8083/8...aa2e6959_n.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8360/8...934f0dc0_n.jpg
The subject matter is no less "trite" ( a pretty girl in pretty clothes) than that employed by Atroschenko... but then many a masterpiece has been produced from the most "trite" subject. Marshennikov, however, has an undeniable facility with paint. Few artists, myself included, wouldn't envy his technical skill. But Marshennikov is more than just a good technician. He has a strong eye for composition and a sensitivity to color harmonies. I'd have no problem with acknowledging that he is a damn good painter... even if his work is not to my taste. The one area in which I find his work lacking is in the realm of what is often referred to as "originality". Marshennikov's paintings lack a unique artist's "voice". They look like paintings by so many other technically skillful, academic realists. I have no problem with the fact that the subject is trite. There is a time and place for visual bon-bons. The greatest artists can bring a unique voice to their bon-bons so that they stand out for the works of everyone else:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8355/8...040e5cc5_n.jpg
-Francois Boucher
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8357/8...db0a820c_n.jpg
-Jean-Honoré Fragonard
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8364/8...8ea51d71_n.jpg
-Anders Zorn
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8212/8...dc6a6bcc_n.jpg
-Peter Paul Rubens
When looking at Art... the beauty must lie in the Art... not merely in the subject matter. Quite honestly, there is far more artistic sensitivity and "beauty" in the works of a skillful pin-up artist like Gil Elvgren, than in the paintings by Atroschenko:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8353/8...99b8e707_n.jpg
(And I cannot help but love the tongue-in-cheek parody of Fragonard)
There are some overrated and underrated artists right now at the very least, and a great many excesses which will be considered poor taste in future generations. My personal hunch is that Kiefer and Mondrian will not age as well as others. I am hoping that Stanislaw Szukalski will overtake Henry Moore, Jorge Gonzalez Camarena will outpace Mondrian, and Gottfried Helnwein will overtake Anselm Kiefer. Then Edward Hopper for Paul Klee, Tamara de Lempicka for Mark Rothko, Werner Tubke for Jaspar Johns, Franz Marc for Georges Braque, Odd Nerdrum for Sean Scully, etc.
Well... we can all play that game. I suspect Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Yue Minjun, and Tracey Emin are all grossly overrated. Jorge Gonzalez Camarena is interesting... but quite honestly, I feel the whole of Latin-American Modernism is grossly undervalued, and the Mexican Muralists... especially Diego Rivera... deserve far more recognition. Franz Marc vs Braque? They strike me as being about equally admired. The same holds true of Nerdrum and Scully. Neither one is struggling. I just don't get Tubke... and haven't seen many others who do... on the other hand, Helnwein's reputation seems to be on the upward swing, yet comparing the Romantic tragedy of Kiefer's battered elegies to Helnwein's polished, photo-realistic satire and irony may prove quite difficult.
LOL! I don’t. How many times I need to tell you that. Don’t try to sit in my head……it’s serious problem. Very serious indeed.:lol:Quote:
Originally posted by stlukesguild
ftil... you seem to like to to look at art through the lens of certain academics... Giordano Bruno and Marsilio Ficino among them... as well as through the filter of Art Therapy.
BTW, your choice of art inspired me to look deeper at painters. Too many ugly paintings. So, blame yourself for bringing such an ugly art. Second, I was very curious why you were fixated on nudity as you posted nude women on many threads. It led me to renaissance magicians and occultists. Thanks to you. :smile5:
Hmm…you assuming that I don’t appreciate beauty or I don’t know what beauty is. I don't want to be sarcastic but don't you think that it is ironic that you want to show me “ beauty”.Quote:
I'll offer you some thoughts by various acadmics/theorists/philosophers with regard to the issue of "beauty"
You didn’t say anything about Robert Coombs painting I have posted. I am curious what you think.
I already told it her was trite, but then, she has me on Ignore. :smilewinkgrin:
Such wonderful educational work Stlukesguild is doing here, and it is met by sneers and mockery from ftil. A typical Internet message board experience. :crazy:
"Too many ugly paintings," ftil says. And there is the point, which I raised earlier: for ftil, beauty in art is prettiness. Sorry, pretty is not enough, not for great art.
I wonder what ftil thinks of this:
http://cjdown.files.wordpress.com/20...ping-woman.jpg
Atroschenko's stuff is trite squared, and no doubt hugely commercially successful.
My impression is that Diego Rivera has quite a bit of recognition, but I feel you are right about Latin-American modernism in general being grossly undervalued. Some astonishing work there. A whole museum devoted to it in southern California, from which I had a huge book of the paintings in the museum, sent to me as a Christmas present. I lost it on the New York subway. :sad: Not before I had thoroughly immersed myself in it, happily.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
I don’t know what annunciation has to do with holiday season.
The Christmas Season traditionally involved the telling of the "Life of the Virgin" from her marriage, the Annunciation, the Visitation, on through the Birth of Christ, King Herod, and the Flight into Egypt. This cycle of narratives was a counterpart to the Life of Christ and the Passion which tended to be told during the Easter Season. These two related cycles were often painted as a cycle of paintings.
Having said this... let us return to the Christmas Season themed painting... moving further into the 20th century:
There were a number of artists we might truly define as Christian or Religious Artists. One of the first names to pop into my head when seeking out Modern artists who might have painted the Nativity or other Christmas-related themes was Georges Rouault. Rouault painted a great many paintings on Biblical themes, and even has a painting in the collection of the Vatican. Delving through his work... which often has the appearance of weather-beaten stained glass windows... I found that almost all of his paintings on Biblical themes centered on Christ as the "Man of Sorrows" and the "Passion" and Crucifixion:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...8f1bb_w600.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...yfageation.jpg
The next artist whose name immediately came to mind, was Emil Nolde. Nolde was a personally and politically quite conservative. he grew up on a farm and was raised as a devout Lutheran. He joined and exhibited with both of the radical German Expressionist groups, Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter but he was eventually expelled or left both of these groups – foreshadowing of the difficulty Nolde had maintaining relationships with the organizations to which he belonged. His paintings often explored Christian or Germanic myth and legend. Nolde was a supporter of the Nazi party from the early 1920s, having become a member of its Danish section. He expressed negative opinions about Jewish artists, and considered Expressionism to be a distinctively Germanic style. In spite of this Nolde was also one of the first and most audacious of the German Expressionists... and as such he was particularly targeted by Hitler and included in the Degenerate Art exhibition of 1937, despite protests of various high-ranking Nazis, notably Joseph Goebbels. He was forbidden to paint—even in private—after 1941... on penalty of death. Nevertheless, during this period he created hundreds of watercolors (which didn't have the tell-tale odor of oils), which he hid. He called them the "Unpainted Pictures".
One of Nolde's greatest works is a great polyptych or multi-paneled painting... a sort of Expressionist "altarpiece" entitled The Life of Christ.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...dcaa9a_b-1.jpg
Among the individual panels, is a painting of the Nativity in which Mary joyfully holds the newborn child aloft while Joseph smiles and in the distance the three magi can be seen. The simple forma and brilliant color convey the narrative in a manner as fully accessible as a Medieval sculpture.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...253c61_b-1.jpg
In contrast to Nolde's image of the Virgin as joyful mother, we might look at the image of the Madonna as presented by the Norwegian Expressionist, Edvard Munch:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8504/8...e696d596_n.jpg
Munch was obsessed with mental illness and death, having witnessed almost all of his siblings die or slip into madness. He declared "I inherited two of mankind's most frightful enemies—the heritage of consumption and insanity." His rather Bohemian sexual appetite and fear of syphilis (combined with his alcoholism and preference for reading darker works of literature) only furthered his fear of women. Munch spoke of his goal as painting the soul just as Leonardo painted the anatomy. His Madonna with her halo clearly alludes to THE Madonna... but this red glowing halo also suggests a bloody red mood. The point of view is that of the male artist looking up at his lover astride him, her head thrown back and eyes closed in orgasmic ecstasy... and yet she appears almost as a Vampire or Succubus... the woman who brings death in the form of Syphilis... or further generations of consumptive and mentally ill children.
The third artist who I immediately thought of in terms of painters of religious subjects, was Marc Chagall. Chagall, a Jewish Russian painter working in France produced an endless array of magical and mystical images drawn from Biblical narratives. As a Jewish artist, most of his paintings, unsurprisingly, centered upon the narratives of the Hebrew Bible. Nevertheless... Chagall did paint some Christian narratives:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...c-chagall2.jpg
His images of Jewish brides often suggest the Virgin Mary in a landscape populated with animals out of Jewish folk tales that talk and sing and play instruments and fly.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/..._Cruc_sign.jpg
A few other works are clearly based on Christian narratives. The print, Mystical Crucifixion presents a vision of the crucified Christ and the Virgin Mary and Christ child hovering above a Russian Jewish shtetl that might have been little different than the stables at Bethlehem. Flying above all is Yahweh... God the Creator.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...magArticle.jpg
In the painting The Assumption of the Virgin, Mary rises... again from a shtetl into the heavens... to the great joy and acclaim of the Hebrew Angels and attendant farm animals. She is dressed in her wedding gown... and yet holds the baby Christ-child. From directly above her an angel descends to kiss her forehead in a manner merging Jewish and Christian traditions.
Moving into the mid-20th century I found it near impossible to find any paintings of real merit illustrating the Christmas narratives. Then again... "narrative" itself became a anathema at this time in painting. Artists like Mark Rothko suggested that abstraction could have a spiritual nature... but this was removed from the specifics of religion and religious narratives.
Sean Scully, building on the tradition of Rothko, gave his paintings names that alluded to specific religious/spiritual narratives... such as Gabriel:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...llyGabriel.jpg
Interpretation of these paintings in connection with the titles is left open-ended and up to the individual viewer. Does the gray and white allude to the silvery wings and robes of the angel of the annunciation? Doe the brown and black ladder-like panel suggest Jacob's Ladder and the man's wrestling with God?
And what of Maestà?
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...0deo1_1280.jpg
Duccio's Maestà was the masterpiece of the early Renaissance (International Gothic) in Siena:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...ta_1308-11.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...-side-1311.jpg
The work was a sculptural multi-paneled altarpiece in the round made up of dozens of paintings telling of the Life of Mary and the Life of Christ. The center front panel presents the Virgin Mary as the Madonna... mother of Christ and Queen of Heaven seated in majesty... from which the title derives.
Scully's painting undoubtedly refers more to Duccio's painting than it does to the subject of the Virgin. Considering the title, the black and white stripes of Scully's painting suggest the similar stripes of the cathedral of Siena:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...-cathedral.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...athedral01.jpg
The last... almost contemporary variation on Biblical narratives related to Christmas are admittedly disconcerting. The first is entitled Adoration of the Magi.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...o/th_gh293.jpg
The painter, the Austrian Gottfried Helnwein offers a disturbing image rooted in Austria's and Germany's not-so-distant past. A beautiful blonde Madonna... the Aryan ideal... holds forth her newborn son who appears quite like an infant Hitler. She is surrounded my the "magi" or high-ranking Nazi officers. One cannot help but recognize the satirical comment upon the almost religious fanaticism that the Nazis inspired.
Another pair of untitled paintings from 2005 strike me as alluding (even if unintentionally) to the theme of the Annunciation:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/.../th_gh2160.jpg
In the first painting, a young girl stares out at us as she sits on her bed in a stark cell-like room akin to those often portrayed in paintings of the Annunciation. A raking light enters the room.. not unlike the light that accompanies the entry of Christ as he calls forth Matthew in Caravaggio's Calling of St. Matthew:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...th_23conta.jpg
... or in Henry Ossawa Tanner's Annunciation, which I posted earlier in this thread.
In the second similar painting from this series the young girl is confronted with a vision:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...itled_2005.jpg
Hers is not the vision of the Angel Gabriel, but rather that of a rather nightmarish rabbit in a general's robe. He glows and seems blurred in a manner suggestive of the flickering images on a TV screen. Are dreams such as these what we have come to?
I wonder what ftil thinks of this:
A marvelous Picasso... brutal... almost violent in his handling of paint and clash of colors and jagged lines. And yet incredibly expressive of the fear and horror and suffering of WWII... and ultimately quite beautiful.
Hm… I didn’t know that it involved the telling of the ‘Life of the Virgin’”. I guess there are so many sects that claim to be Christian and create own versions. :lol:Quote:
Originally posted by stlukesguild
The Christmas Season traditionally involved the telling of the "Life of the Virgin" from her marriage, the Annunciation, the Visitation, on through the Birth of Christ, King Herod, and the Flight into Egypt. This cycle of narratives was a counterpart to the Life of Christ and the Passion which tended to be told during the Easter Season. These two related cycles were often painted as a cycle of paintings.
Wow, stluksguild is giving you, gratis, such an education, and all you can do is sneer like a churl and repeatedly employ your stupid LOL smilie. Sad. And crazy. :crazy:Quote:
Originally Posted by ftil
Yes, exactly. Ftil, unfortunately like so many others, conflates prettiness in the visual arts with beauty. But beauty is not prettiness. Beauty is expressiveness and originality and authenticity. In the visual arts, true beauty is that which challenges you -- same with all the other arts. The ax the breaks the frozen sea, as Kafka had it.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Ftil prefers visual wallpaper. Banalities to lull one into insensibility like a stiff drink combined with a tranquilizer. Of course try that combo too many times and you go to sleep for good.
One of the most beautiful paintings ever made is the Potato Eaters. It's just not pretty.
Thanks for your good work here, stlukesguild, it is a pleasure to read, and I thank you for sharing your extensive knowledge about art.
Beauty has nothing to do with originality or authenticity. I do not know what you mean by expressiveness, but I am guessing it may not be something that beauty must have. True beauty neither challenges anything. Most beauty is banal and you step over it without even nodding.
Whatever. :Yawn:Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
Of course, I'm not talking about "beauty" as a general concept. I'm talking about beauty in the visual arts.
I do not know how I could be clearer, or where your confusion lies. ftil (probably you, too) likes pretty art. Pretty art is wallpaper art, designed to deaden the mind with visual banalities.
I hold, as does stlukesguild, that Picasso's Weeping Woman is beautiful -- even though, like Van Gogh's Potato Eaters, it is also jarringly ugly. Can you understand that? Can you understand how something, in the visual arts (also the other arts) can be both beautiful and ugly -- indeed, can be beautiful precisely because it IS ugly?
I doubt it. But do let me know.
As to expressiveness, see stlukesguild's passage on the personal expression of the artist, the need to put his stamp, his signature, on a work.
Authenticity: See the early works of Van Gogh, especially, when he was striving to be a social realist painter, a painter of the peasants around him. See, in fact, The Potato Eaters, for a paramount example of authenticity in the visual arts. Van Gogh was reproached, even by his own brother, for this painting, for its titanic ugliness (and also for alleged bad drawing). Contrast this painting with the prettified idealizations of peasant life of other painters, including, to some extent, even Millet, Van Gogh's idol. Authenticity means the artist was trying to express something REAL about his life, and the lives of those around him, and not idealize it.
I'm baffled I even have to explain this stuff.
Sorry, but I have no confusion. It seems to me that you are the one who likes pretty art, except you think you like prettier than ftil. I have no idea where I even said what kind of art I like - yet you just tried to define it. A bit too much assumptions from your part about me.
Frankly, I find Picasso impressive. He is awesome. I do not need to call him beautifully ugly. This is just the notions that art must be beautiful so what is completely contrary to it, so let's accept it. You are completely missing Picasso if you have to adjust a traditional notion of beauty to explain why his works have such impact.
Now, let me explain: artists needing to have their personal mark on works, what you call expressiviness, is not beauty. Beauty is not the object, beauty in arts is the impact on the public, on the audience. It is a manifestation. That is where "beauty" manifests. Yet, still very mundane. Beauty in visual arts, in all arts, is the manifestation of the artwork, not the artwork. Artworks can be expressive? Sure. But that is one way, one element of art, not of beauty.
Authenticy? Again you confuse the artwork - mostly one style of art - with beauty. How silly is to claim authenticy is trying to express something real (all art express something real and about the author life) and how ridiculous is too say Van Gogh does not idealize. You just admire plain realism and if we accept the only art is the kind of representation of the mundane, so what about Michelangelo extremelly idealized heroes? Does he lacks authenticity? An artwork, an artist may need this authenticity, but beauty? Beauty just is. No explantion, no rules, no need to be authentic. Beauty just happpens, all the time, ready to surprise us on the next corner.
And originality, good luck trying to explain this one. Near Stlukes, who dislikes the naive romantic version of orginality and is a borges's fan. And yet, this is the artwork, beauty can be copied - it is - a hundred times, used, tossed on the ground. Beauty happens everyday.
Be carefull. You just didn't stop to think that baffled you. Not your explanations (which explained why your romantic notions can be so wrong, only this).
Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Ha, a couple of days ago I was considering offering up Nolde as an example, but had to do the dishes or some other domestic chore.
Anyhow, Nolde is featured in a book I have on the Vatican Museums. I believe there's another Nolde painting regarding the Adoration of the Magi.
The Duomo of Siena is breathtaking, the moment I entered, my legs became weak and felt the need to immediately sit down for a moment to take it in.
btw- another interesting stop in Siena is the Basilica of San Domenico.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilic...menico_(Siena)
Inside you will find the relic of Saint Catherine, as in... her head!
The head is located in the side chapel dedicated to Saint Catherine.
The chapel includes works by Il Sodoma and Francesco Vanni.
Cioran,
Just a friendly suggestion to a newcomer, be careful with the size of the images you post, otherwise you might get your palms whacked with a 12 inch rule by Sister Mary Catherine.
The standing rule is to use thumbnails.
This is just such a muddled mess of histrionics that I am not going to waste my time trying to figure out what you are trying to say.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
I will say, from what little sense that I can glean from this obtuse rant, that you are comparing apples and oranges when you compare Van Gogh and Michelangelo, and of course you misconstrue what I say, either deliberately or out of ignorance, perhaps both. No one was more authentic than Michelangelo. So now I suppose I shall have to explain authenticity in terms of the context of its times. Or ... not. I don't have stlukesguild's estimable patience in suffering fools.
stlukesguild is a fan of Borges? Good for him! Do you find that bad?
Honestly, not that I care.
BTW, Van Gogh ADORED Michelangelo. As do I.
The Cathedral of Siena is quite interesting. We may find there Hermes Trismegistus and sphinx.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gilliatt Gurgle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:He..._cathedral.jpg
Or, wheel of fortune.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...la_fortuna.jpg
LOL, more idiot occultism. And before that a post by JCamilo which appears to have been typed while under the influence.Quote:
Originally Posted by ftil
Too bad it's so hard to have meaningful discussions on the Internet. They always get hijacked by ... well, I won't even say; probably to do so would break a rule here
Look, if you are going to hide behind Stlukes, keep quiet. Your attempt to impose vallues such as expressiviness, originality or authenticity as the definition of beauty just because you like them is not the kind of argument he would have here. But if you are going to be obnoxious calling other fools, you better present something useful. "BTW, Van Gogh ADORED Michelangelo. As do I" is just a histerical rant for footballing fans. Of course, someone who just claimed an artist didnt idealize something is just not thinking much of his own muddled mess to even grasp what others are talking.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cioran
My God, this thread is active.
Aren't all paintings expressive and authentic if their painters actually paint them? Even if I piss on a canvas and peddle it a painting, it is expressive of my intent and yes, authentic because I use my own piss.
I took several art studies courses, and in each course, I saved my spit by sticking to my mantra: beautiful paintings comfort me amid the ugliness in the world that disturbs, and ugly paintings discomfort me amid the beauty in the world that quiets. Both keep me sane and balanced.
I suppose one can have an unexpressive pissing, but since it is something real, about your life it is really the authentic pee.
Yes; a couple more of many examples of wonderful art within the Cathedral, some of which I do remember (I was there in January of 1998)Quote:
Originally Posted by ftil
Just a minor point of clarification though; the part of my message you quoted regards the other church I referenced that being the Basilica Saint Domenico which is also in Siena. i.e.- Catherine's head is at the Basilica not the Cathedral.
In this instance, I chose to take ftil's message as simply pointing out a couple more beautiful works found inside the Cathderal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cioran
Unfortunately I did not see the Piccolomini Library or the Baptistry, if I had it is likely I would have been taken out on a guerney.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siena_Cathedral - scroll down about 2/3 of the page.
.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gilliatt Gurgle
You are free to choose what you think and I would be the last person to convince you otherwise. I wasn’t focusing on the art though but on the fact that we may find Hermes Trismegistus and sphinx in catholic cathedral.
another thing:
I thought Postmodernism has successfully blurred the division between high and low art/literature/culture. If it hasn't, many years then have been wasted by scholars in colleges and universities pretending that the meaningful use of the theory as pacifist is applicable.
The division is blurred and rebuild constantly, I would say. Just see here, the division between more academic members, the snobs, the harry potter fans, the piss in the painting fans, the anti-joyce brigade, the conspiracy terrorists, etc. And in the past, we had academics like Dante breaking the line, but with time, turning into a division by itself.
JC, is there a new theory now (that I don't know) that constructs what has been deconstructed? Or is it simply the attempt to go back to modernism or to the structuralist construction of knowledge?
I am not on academy (I guess someone like OrphanPip would know), but I do think, beyond the theorical world, there is attempts to recover from the last 50,60 years of artistc challenges. As I said to Stlukes, the question "what is" the dominated the production in the last decades seems to have exausted the capacity of producing anything interesting. I think, guys like Stlukes, who vallue the technique necessary to produce an artwork ahead of the impact caused on the system may lead on. I may be wrong, because prophecy is always closer to failure than success, but high technology that is dominating some fields seems to be leading back to the "art" in artesian in a way.
Before addressing some of the issues here, I'll point out that JCamilo is writing with English as a third (?) language after Portuguese (Brazil) and Spanish.
OK... now let's try to make some sense of this. JCamilo writes: artists need(__) to have their personal mark on works, what you call expressiveness, is not beauty.
Agreed. And I spoke of this with regard to the painter Serge Marshennikov:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8083/8...aa2e6959_n.jpg
I suggested that his paintings were indeed quite beautiful... but fell short in that they lacked a strong personal voice.
Beauty is not the object, beauty in arts is the impact on the public, on the audience.
OK... I take this as suggesting that "beauty" is something along the lines of what Oscar Wilde intended when he wrote, "It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors." Or simply put... "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder?" To a certain degree, I concur. The failure to appreciate James Joyce or Richard Wagner or Picasso... or as I have admitted with regard to myself: Chinese Opera... is not a failing on the part of the artist, but rather a failing on a part of the audience. But is this always so? Is there no good nor bad but thinking makes it so? All judgments in art are subjective... but some judgments are better than others?
When I suggested that Serge Marshennikov's paintings... in spite of their failing in terms of personal style or self-expression or unique artist's voice... were still "beautiful" I suggested that I was speaking of an aesthetic or artistic concept of "beauty". The paintings conveyed a facility... even a mastery of handling paint. The choice of colors were elegant and harmonic. His sense of composition is quite solid. The paintings display an internal logic. Now are we really to suggest there is no possible objective concept of "good" or "bad" when speaking of the structure and form and internal logic of a work of art? Are there not poems that are clearly awkward, disjointed, poorly written? Are there not works of music that strike you as flawless... and yet boring... not because of some failure in form or "beauty"... but because they lack the artist's voice?
It is a manifestation. That is where "beauty" manifests. Yet, still very mundane. Beauty in visual arts, in all arts, is the manifestation of the artwork, not the artwork. Artworks can be expressive? Sure. But that is one way, one element of art, not of beauty.
OK... I can buy that. "Beauty" is not the goal (or always the goal) of art... but it is an element of art. And if we accept Burke's notion of beauty as that which inspires or evokes pleasure, then "beauty" is a necessary element of art... or rather if we don't find a work of art pleasurable/beautiful we are not likely going to appreciate it. I rarely find Schoenberg beautiful because he rarely gives me pleasure... but I find Berg... and even Tristan Murail and Giacinto Scelsi beautiful/pleasurable.
In confronting ftil's notions of the lack of beauty in 20th century art, I was attempting to point out that there can be a beauty in that which inspires fear or sadness or angst or other negative emotions when these are given an artistic form: Burke's "Sublime"... but that there remains much in Modern art that is quite "beautiful" in a traditional sense.
Or such are my thoughts. Defining "beauty" is surely like defining "art". Far better men than we have struggled with the questions... and largely failed.
I find JC's arguments reasonable.
As far as appreciation of visual arts is concerned, everything boils down to the personal taste and interpretation of a viewer. For example, I find the painting above beautiful not because of the colors, forms, sharpness, etc, but due to the narrative I get and the "sub-images"--the ones we do not directly see that can be about the subject or the painter--that pop up in my head. You can question how I see things, but that's me--I see a watermelon as someone's labor.
Well, paintings evoke feelings and paintings or images can manipulate how we feel. I talked about ugliness in modern art that is pervasive. Do you remember our discussion on your art thread where you tired to convinced me that I didn’t understand art…the art that was absolutely ugly.Quote:
Originally posted by stlukesguild
In confronting ftil's notions of the lack of beauty in 20th century art, I was attempting to point out that there can be a beauty in that which inspires fear or sadness or angst or other negative emotions when these are given an artistic form: Burke's "Sublime"... but that there remains much in Modern art that is quite "beautiful" in a traditional sense.
Paintings that depict sadness can be beautiful. Paintings that evoke negative feelings or disgust are no. You have shown a few artists on your art thread I have shown a few “masters of ugliness” here but the list is quite long.
BTW, you write about Serge Marshennikov's again.
I have asked you twice what do you think about Robert Coombs' painting I posted. It was not nudity….Is it a reason you have been avoiding it? :lol:
Yes. His technique is perfect. I can see how in a world today, it is missing something. It is cold. It is telling so little. Maybe my failure to appreciate, but we can move on. Neither you and me try to define beauty by the authenticity of an artwork.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Yes, because we know beauty is one element for art, not all of it. What often happens in the debate is that different artists or movements try to define Beauty by the internal logic of their work. They are not going to be wrong - as the artist needs the notion of what beauty he is doing, but obviously, one rule for Beethoveen another for AC/DC. (As I would say, the it is not a judgment of vallue :D ). So many fields happened because many have been able to spot the rules that worked so well for them and could not accept it was not universal. It is like there is Beauty and beauty.Quote:
OK... I take this as suggesting that "beauty" is something along the lines of what Oscar Wilde intended when he wrote, "It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors." Or simply put... "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder?" To a certain degree, I concur. The failure to appreciate James Joyce or Richard Wagner or Picasso... or as I have admitted with regard to myself: Chinese Opera... is not a failing on the part of the artist, but rather a failing on a part of the audience. But is this always so? Is there no good nor bad but thinking makes it so? All judgments in art are subjective... but some judgments are better than others?
When I suggested that Serge Marshennikov's paintings... in spite of their failing in terms of personal style or self-expression or unique artist's voice... were still "beautiful" I suggested that I was speaking of an aesthetic or artistic concept of "beauty". The paintings conveyed a facility... even a mastery of handling paint. The choice of colors were elegant and harmonic. His sense of composition is quite solid. The paintings display an internal logic. Now are we really to suggest there is no possible objective concept of "good" or "bad" when speaking of the structure and form and internal logic of a work of art? Are there not poems that are clearly awkward, disjointed, poorly written? Are there not works of music that strike you as flawless... and yet boring... not because of some failure in form or "beauty"... but because they lack the artist's voice?
I do not take all from the artist. The artist is trying to tell what is his vision, to give his message. He try to manipulate the audience. But since beauty in art is the result of that aesthetic momment it cannot be anything but the momment when the momment happens. In a way the artist is always there. Not out. I just would not call failures.
Yes, I would just not use the word pleasure. It is not always it. It can be painful as Miyako suggested. There must be some impact.Quote:
OK... I can buy that. "Beauty" is not the goal (or always the goal) of art... but it is an element of art. And if we accept Burke's notion of beauty as that which inspires or evokes pleasure, then "beauty" is a necessary element of art... or rather if we don't find a work of art pleasurable/beautiful we are not likely going to appreciate it. I rarely find Schoenberg beautiful because he rarely gives me pleasure... but I find Berg... and even Tristan Murail and Giacinto Scelsi beautiful/pleasurable.
Yes, obviously. Divinity is both terrible and beautiful. But maybe, the thing is that art objective is too provoke that aesthetic emotion able to persuade us to revive emotions and experiences as if they are real and that was called Beauty. But this Beauty was just confuded with harmnoy, the perfect of forms, the physical beauty, true. Would be better maybe allure.Quote:
In confronting ftil's notions of the lack of beauty in 20th century art, I was attempting to point out that there can be a beauty in that which inspires fear or sadness or angst or other negative emotions when these are given an artistic form: Burke's "Sublime"... but that there remains much in Modern art that is quite "beautiful" in a traditional sense.
I think ftil is doing an mistake: he is too worried with the use of artworks. It is not that is false that artworks were used for political reason. Or occultists. Or shoes salesman. Or doctors. Or Jung. Sure. But that only mean something casual about that artwork. Nothing much important.
Oh, certainly. I am certainly vague enough. I do not think beauty and art - or the world - i meant to be in a dictionary. The discussion of what is art, what is beauty, goes well to a uncertain territory.Quote:
Or such are my thoughts. Defining "beauty" is surely like defining "art". Far better men than we have struggled with the questions... and largely failed.
I am reasonable, just not in english :DQuote:
Originally Posted by miyako73
Yes, Art is always gambling with the perspective. I guess Stlukes worries is that his view is not the view of an uninteressed viewer, more of a critic, maybe to think where it will go or what he can use. I guess he is not against the watermellon, just wondering if it is sweaty and nutritive.Quote:
As far as appreciation of visual arts is concerned, everything boils down to the personal taste and interpretation of a viewer. For example, I find the painting above beautiful not because of the colors, forms, sharpness, etc, but due to the narrative I get and the "sub-images"--the ones we do not directly see that can be about the subject or the painter--that pop up in my head. You can question how I see things, but that's me--I see a watermelon as someone's labor.
I thought Postmodernism has successfully blurred the division between high and low art/literature/culture. If it hasn't, many years then have been wasted by scholars in colleges and universities pretending that the meaningful use of the theory as pacifist is applicable.
Modernism was blurring the boundaries far before the term Post-Modernism even existed. Picasso suggested that true art was produced in the same manner in which the Aristocrats of the Italian Renaissance produced their children: through a merger of the low-born and the high. Look at this painting:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...ncert78-79.jpg
With Realism and Impressionism in the late 19th century there was already a push toward art which explores "low" culture.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...io/th_6b-1.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...hio/th_11b.jpg
Degas was looking at the bars, nightclubs, cheap diners and cafes, and even the brothels for subject matter for his paintings.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...300-2006-1.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/.../th_mucha2.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/..._la_goulue.jpg
By the time of the Post-Impressionists, a mass-produced, commercial art form such as the poster was already being recognized as a work of real art.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...b_isolde-2.jpg
As were book illustrations.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...io/th_11-2.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...fter_600-1.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...1_r1_500-1.jpg
By the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, you could find major "fine artists" working on such commercial ventures as poster design.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...asso_04042.jpg
With Cubism we find the abandonment of the notion that a painting must be an illusion of visual reality and the recognition that a painting is essentially an organization of colors, shapes, lines, etc... on a flat surface. By this definition, a painting need not even be made wholly of paint. The artist may incorporate elements drawn from the "real world"... even from the world of mass-production and popular culture.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...tchenknife.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/.../th_kurt-2.jpg
Taken further... the entire image might be made of the detritus of our mass-produced culture.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...Ohio/th_17.jpg
The German Expressionists often drew inspiration from sleazy nightclubs and jazz music.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...e63dd942_b.jpg
George Grosz even employed the techniques of comic books and children's "doodles" in the production of art.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...hio/th_139.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...hio/th_135.jpg
Max Beckmann is one of the most interesting painters, populating hi canvases with an almost surreal mix of "high" and "low": Wagnerian heroes, Greek and Persian warriors, African totems, Biblical references... as well as cigarette girls, jazz performers, acrobats, waiters from high-class Berlin hotels, bellhops, actresses, etc...
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...ineAIC_AIC.jpg
With the onset of Pop Art, the line between "high" and "low" became ever more blurred. Robert Rauschenberg built assemblages of the detritus of the urban American streets.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...Marilyns-1.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...h_B38572-1.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8077/8...5562f3c4_m.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8491/8...4f76876c_m.jpg
Hollywood, Rock Stars, Pin-Ups and Pornography, Anime... virtually any aspect of popular culture became fair game for art.
But the divide between "high" and "low" still exists. It has little to do with subject matter, imagery, or even the media... and everything to do with the context and perceptions.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8073/8...b89612af_m.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...o/th_808bg.jpg
There isn't a huge world of difference between R.Crumb's comics... which a critic as esteemed as Robert Hughes compared to Pieter Bruegel... and the late comic-book derived paintings of Philip Guston. They both share the same satirical intentions. But Guston's works are exhibited in major galleries and museums and sell for millions... while Crumb depends upon the mechanization of the mass-media to sell to a large mass audience.
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/..._Hope_2008.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...edomtoLead.jpg
There is even less of a gap between an artist like Andy Warhol and Shepard Fairey. Both employ the technique of mass-production, using silk screens and employing laborers to realize their images. Both employ imagery drawn from popular culture. Warhol's works, however, are marketed within the context of the high-end "fine art" market for very very large sums of money... and Fairey's works are not.
Within the larger art world there is a growing recognition that great art can rise from anywhere... from the untrained folk artist, from popular culture, from smaller regional art markets... or from the context of the high-end "art world"... but only the latter can demand the astronomical prices... and as such their is a concerted effort to maintain the illusion of a clear separation between "high" and "low".
It can be argued that the "blurring" of boundaries in modernism is actually the mere juxtaposition of binaries that is structuralist. It only compares and contrasts.
The "blurring" in postmodernism is more of deconstructing. Instead of just placing black and white side-by-side, it aims to construct gray.