The Visual Arts: Exploring the History of "Fine Art" and Beyond

[ftil]

Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Having said this... Giorgio Morandi is still a better painter than Marshenikov... or Robert Coombs. Coombs is better than Atroshenko... but if you really like work along this line, look at Daniel Gerhartz:

Oh come on, I have posted Daniel Gerhartz’s paintings on Name the Painting thread and I remember that you criticized him as you said, “Daniel Gerhartz has some serious skills... but he doesn't seem to have the least idea what century he is living in”.


Well I appreciate that he is nonconformist like many other painters who blindly follow the trend.

Second, you can’t compare Giorgio Morandi to Robert Coombs or Daniel Gerhartz. I like Robert Coombs’s art and he got well deserved American National Award of Excellence, Hunter Editions Award of Excellence" and First Annual Fine Art Competition.

Not to my taste. Too much of a schmaltz-laden pastiche of late 19th century French Academicism... but very well done schmaltz

Schmaltz, eh?

Well, Daniel Gerhartz received a numerous awards such as Nona Jean Hulsey-Buyer's Choice Award, Prix de West Invitational, NAWA, National Cowboy Hall of Fame, Oklahoma, 1999, 1994, 1993 Robert Lougheed Award, Prix de West Invitational, National Cowboy Hall of Fame, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 1998 Silver Medal for Oil, National Academy of Western Art Exhibit, National Cowboy Hall of Fame, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 1993 Buyer's Choice Award, Northwest Rendezvous Exhibit, Kimball Art Center, Park City, Utah, 1992 John F. and Anna Lee Stacey Foundation Scholarship, 1998 Chicago Municipal Art League Award, 1988 President's Award - American Academy of Art, 1985 Faculty Recommendation Scholarship - American Academy of Art, 1985 MUSEUM COLLECTIONSWest Bend Art Museum, permanent collection, West Bend, Wisconsin, 1989 Huntsville Museum of Art, permanent collection, Huntsville, Alabama, 1997


I don’t know about you and whether you have received awards for your work or not. But if you have at least the same list of awards if not more as Daniel Gerhartz, you may be entitled to voice such a harsh criticism.

[stlukesguild]

If I'll be strictly formalist, I will only look at the compositional elements in his portrait paintings: the use of dark tones, the play of light and shadow, the central positioning of the subject, the brightened background, the illumination of the face that creates visual layers, the lines that separate the foreground and the background, the brush strokes that create texture for more visual layers, even the size of the paintings, if I want to be mathematical, I can plot points to measure angles and distance all for finding out about compositional balance, and many more.

That is why I noted that pure "Greenbergian" Formalism was doomed to failure. It limited the discussion to only that within the painting itself. Art for Art's Sake or art pour l'art admits that the viewer will bring his or her own baggage to a work of art... but rejects the notion that these external non-art elements are at all relevant to judging a work of art. Oscar Wilde's Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray is probably the best distillation of this approach to looking at art:

The artist is the creator of beautiful things...
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things...
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors...

Seeking "meaning" is part of interpretation and has nothing to do with judgment. When we base judgment upon external elements, we get the thinking that lies behind censorship. For centuries the Church deemed certain works of art immoral... and thus bad... because they were viewing art through their dogma. This is no different than the Marxist deeming this painting "bad":



because it glorifies and reinforces the privilege of the Aristocracy...

Nor is it any different from the Feminist declaring this painting bad...



... because it reinforces societal-based gender stereotypes. Neither interpretation involves looking at the image as an art object with a sensitivity to the visual elements. Again... both interpretations are more about words... attempting to put the visual into words... the attempt to use the art object to illustrate a given theory or dogma... It is the spectator, and not life, (or the work of art itself) that such an interpretation really mirrors...

Will I consider Rembrandt's portraits the best, the most beautiful, the most brilliant, and the most impressive? Nope. For my taste, temperament, penchant for context and narrative, I'll pick Frida Kahlo's self-portraits any day.

I personally prefer Bonnard and Matisse to Picasso... but I can fully recognize Picasso's towering genius and would not think to question the notion that he was the greatest artist of the 20th century.

St. Frida?

"I have spoken to the most intelligent people about art, and
they have not understood; but among those who understand, words
are not necessary; you say 'Humpf, he, ha' and everything has
been said."
-Degas

[stlukesguild]

Oh come on, I have posted Daniel Gerhartz’s paintings on Name the Painting thread and I remember that you criticized him as you said, “Daniel Gerhartz has some serious skills... but he doesn't seem to have the least idea what century he is living in”.

And what makes you think I have changed my position? Gerhartz is a better painter than Atroschenko. This does not mean that either of them show the least element that suggests they have absorbed anything from the last 120+ years of painting or are even aware of what century they are working in.

Well I appreciate that he is nonconformist like many other painters who blindly follow the trend.

William Blake was a non-conformist. Giorgio Morandi was a non-conformist. Atroschenko and Gerhartz are reactionaries. They are still painting as is it were the 19th century and they were members of the French Academy.

There is nothing in a painting like this:



... that would have been out of place hanging in a Victorian Salon. This is not a question of "beauty"... and certainly not of "realism". There is nothing "realistic" about such paintings. The problem is that it comes off as a pastiche. The artists have a set notion of how a painting "should" look based upon a specific period and style of painting. This is not an art that is inspired by the art of the past, but rather an art that mimics the art of the past.

Second, you can’t compare Giorgio Morandi to Robert Coombs or Daniel Gerhartz. I like Robert Coombs’s art and he got well deserved American National Award of Excellence, Hunter Editions Award of Excellence" and First Annual Fine Art Competition.

Coombs and Gerhartz have both won numerous awards from various associations which promote a reactionary approach to painting. Morandi, on the other hand, hangs in the Met, MoMA, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and numerous other major museums in the US, Europe, and Asia. two of his paintings currently hang in the White House. His works have also been featured in films by Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni, as well as a novel by Don DeLillo. Coombs was awarded a $10,000 prize. Morandi's paintings sell for millions. Although I suspect that Morandi's career might just be the more impressive, neither awards nor sales are a true measure of an artist's worth one way or the other... Of the 5 wealthiest living artists, only two (Jaspar Johns and Gerhard Richter) are any good. (And Richter's conceptual paintings are garbage and his abstractions little more than garish decorative bon-bons). Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons are little more than con-artists... hucksters of the worst kitsch imaginable. Takashi Murakami is their Japanese heir apparent... and the next artist in line... David Choe... is a grossly overvalued graffiti artist. Rembrandt and Vermeer, on the other hand, died in relative obscurity and poverty.

I don’t know about you and whether you have received awards for your work or not. But if you have at least the same list of awards if not more as Daniel Gerhartz, you may be entitled to voice such a harsh criticism.

Yes... I have received a number of awards... which sit on a shelf somewhere gathering dust. I have also sold a number of paintings. As any artist who has shown in public, I have been the target of criticism good and bad. The more attention an artist garners, the more likely the work is to be criticized. If the work doesn't live up to the degree of attention it has been afforded (Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Thomas Kinkade, and LeRoy Nieman, for example) the criticism can become quite brutal.

[Cioran]

ftil keeps bringing up an award that Coombs won as if this has jack-all to do with anything. But in this case the award is even worse than meaningless. He won an award from a society that omits in advance any art outside the kind of art that Coombs makes! What an accomplishment!

I used an argument to analogy earlier which raised Miyako's hackles. I don't know why. Oh, well, maybe I do know why, so let's try a different analogy.

In this corner we have the Reader's Digest, and in that corner we have a collection of feminist Marxist literature.

This is not a question of one or the other being good or bad. It's a question of which corner is more likely to expand your intellectual horizions and give you new and fruitful things to think about. Which would you pick, Miyako? Well, since you study feminism and Marxism, I'm guessing you'd pick the feminist/Marxist corner. Zounds! But now you are being high brow and elitist! Who are you to criticize the RD corner? Why not just stick with the RD corner and forget all about the Marxist/feminist corner?

Plainly, though, in the real world, those who desire to expand their intellectual horizions will get more out of either the Feminist/Marxist corner or the Shakespeare corner, or both, than they will get out of the RD corner. This is just a fact.

And Coombs' art in relation to the Great Masters is like that. It's a Reader's Digest corner where thinking stops at a conventionalist, well-trod, unchallenging place. It doesn't mean you can't like his work or that it doesn't have its own "beauty." It's just that, for those who seek more, much more, Coombs is not nearly enough.


The irony here is that it is not I (or stlukesguild) who is trying to dictate to ftil what she should like or find beautiful. It's the other way around. I could easily list the strengths of Coombs' work, while still judging them ultimately insufficient to what is wanted or needed from art. But ftil cannot do likewise. She cannot list the strengths of the modernist canon, or even so much as acknowledge their existence. It is she who is trying to dictate what is "beautful" or perhaps "meaningful" in art, elevating her personal (narrow and blinkered) "taste" in art to a universal commandment. It's a breathakingly arrogant and intellectually bankrupt enterprise she has embarked upon, and will be persuasive only to those who already share her prejudices and her lack of visual education.

[miyako73]

St' Lukes should really do something. You are ruining his thread that's very interesting. Your comments are inconsistent, uninteresting, and absurd.

[Cioran]

St' Lukes should really do something. You are ruining his thread that's very interesting. Your comments are inconsistent, uninteresting, and absurd.

Oh, dear!

My goodness, well you emoting all over the place again. Maybe you could try answering my question instead: here is the Reader's Digest corner, there is the Marxist/Feminist lit corner. Which do you pick, and why?

Of course you've alredy made your pick. Unfortunately, by your own argument earlier when I used the analogy with Shakespeare instead, you are hoist by your own petard. By picking Marxism/feminism you are dissing RD and its readers and we musn't have that! Remember, this is your own argument.

I'm sorry you can't follow a simple analogic argument. To reiterate one last time, I am not making a value judgement that RD is "bad" or that its readers are "dumb" when compared to those who pursue Marxism/feminism or Shakespeare. You imported those value judgments and invalidly ascribed them to my analogic argument. The question is rather of expanding one's mental horizons. And the fact is you already agree with me because if you disagreed, you would never have undertaken Marxist/feminist studies and would instead have contented yourself with a lifetime subscription to Reader's Digest.

Coombs is Reader's Digest art. If you like that stuff, fine. Most of us will want more, much more, thn Coombs is offering. Sorry if such a simple demonstration ticks you off so much. It's mystifying, too, since your very course of study that you chose shows that you agree with me in practice.

[miyako73]

You're wrong. I'll pick reader's digest. I only read books on theories when I need to. They are not my daily readings.

Whether it's high/elite or low/popular literature does not dictate my reading habit and interest. If I feel like reading it, I will. If I think it's interesting, I'll read it. If I have the mood for it, I'll grab it. Right now I have The Book of Songs in my bathroom. Sometimes I feel like reading comic books, the Bible, works of Neruda and other Latin-American writers, works of Asian Writers, English Lit, Spanish Lit, Portuguese Lit, American Lit, Postmodern poetry and fiction, works of Russian poets and novelists, Indian/Pakistani/Afghani novels, Greek tragedies, classical texts, US Supreme court rulings, suicide letters, recipe books, Latin prayers, jokes online, graffiti in public bathrooms and train stations, erotica in men's magazines, hagiography (Catholic and Eastern Christian saints), or even classified ads. In short, I like variety.


Next.

[ftil]

Originally posted by stlukesguild

And what makes you think I have changed my position? Gerhartz is a better painter than Atroschenko. This does not mean that either of them show the least element that suggests they have absorbed anything from the last 120+ years of painting or are even aware of what century they are working in.

Hehehe…this is not what I meant.

Yes... I have received a number of awards... which sit on a shelf somewhere gathering dust.

I am curious what awards you have received. Can I find them on Internet?

[miyako73]

If I'll be strictly formalist, I will only look at the compositional elements in his portrait paintings: the use of dark tones, the play of light and shadow, the central positioning of the subject, the brightened background, the illumination of the face that creates visual layers, the lines that separate the foreground and the background, the brush strokes that create texture for more visual layers, even the size of the paintings, if I want to be mathematical, I can plot points to measure angles and distance all for finding out about compositional balance, and many more.

That is why I noted that pure "Greenbergian" Formalism was doomed to failure. It limited the discussion to only that within the painting itself. Art for Art's Sake or art pour l'art admits that the viewer will bring his or her own baggage to a work of art... but rejects the notion that these external non-art elements are at all relevant to judging a work of art. Oscar Wilde's Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray is probably the best distillation of this approach to looking at art:

The artist is the creator of beautiful things...
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things...
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors...

Seeking "meaning" is part of interpretation and has nothing to do with judgment. When we base judgment upon external elements, we get the thinking that lies behind censorship. For centuries the Church deemed certain works of art immoral... and thus bad... because they were viewing art through their dogma. This is no different than the Marxist deeming this painting "bad":



because it glorifies and reinforces the privilege of the Aristocracy...

Nor is it any different from the Feminist declaring this painting bad...



... because it reinforces societal-based gender stereotypes. Neither interpretation involves looking at the image as an art object with a sensitivity to the visual elements. Again... both interpretations are more about words... attempting to put the visual into words... the attempt to use the art object to illustrate a given theory or dogma... It is the spectator, and not life, (or the work of art itself) that such an interpretation really mirrors...

Will I consider Rembrandt's portraits the best, the most beautiful, the most brilliant, and the most impressive? Nope. For my taste, temperament, penchant for context and narrative, I'll pick Frida Kahlo's self-portraits any day.

I personally prefer Bonnard and Matisse to Picasso... but I can fully recognize Picasso's towering genius and would not think to question the notion that he was the greatest artist of the 20th century.

St. Frida?

"I have spoken to the most intelligent people about art, and
they have not understood; but among those who understand, words
are not necessary; you say 'Humpf, he, ha' and everything has
been said."
-Degas

If your idea of art for art's sake is the rejection of morality in looking at an art and the irrelevance of its artist's justification, I'm all for it. But if your idea includes the rejection of the viewer's input that uses context, biographical reading, narrative, cultural symbols, archetypes, your art for art's sake is just a longer name for formalism. A gay artist painting penises is definitely calling for a biographical reading of his work.

In anthropology of aesthetics, I learned how every human being views an object according to his experience and how every object is a product of culture. If you show two paintings, one by Michaelangelo and another by Qiu Ying (Ming Dynasty), to a Chinese person who does not know the value of both artworks, that person will appreciate Qiu Ying's more. Why? Because he can relate to the art work. The images are familiar to him. Therefore, art appreciation is also cultural.

I know where you're coming from, but if you insist that only the views of the people who are university-trained should be acknowledged when it comes to looking at an art, art appreciation will remain the activity of the elite.

Postcolonialism aims to prevent that elitism to take root or remain stronger. Arts from developing countries should be viewed with different lenses fitting to the historical. social. and cultural backgrounds of their artists. I just don't think you can place an aboriginal art from Australia beside Klimt's masterpiece and say Klimt's is better. To avoid such folly, we have to start accepting the notion that every artwork has its own merit.

In high school, we had art history class but only of Western arts and artists. We were trained to be pretentious. It seemed we were taught so if someone would ask about Baroque or Rococo we could answer. The local artists I knew had been painting since I was a child, but their works were not studied. I realized then that that was the case because their works would not fit within or could not be placed beside the Western arts. I "uneducated" myself by appreciating all kinds of arts, "high" or "low," Western or Eastern, local or international without judging which is better or more beautiful.

I think evaluating, viewing, liking, interpreting are all mental processes we use in looking at and appreciating arts. If you employ semantics, of course, you'll differ. Theories are intellectual lenses that veer us to a certain angle when we look at an art. If an art is not Marxist, it does not mean it is a bad art; it only means it is not interesting to a Marxist--like Michaelangelo's work not interesting to that Chinese person.

I'm really for the use of all lenses in looking at and appreciating arts because I always go for variety over sameness and homogeneity. With that in mind, I'm able to appreciate an artist who crumples a paper and calls it an art or hangs his shorts in an exhibit, and i don't see his artworks as a crumpled paper and his shorts only because I go beyond formalism and the strict interpretation of art for art's sake. The artist may not justify, but I can. A viewer can also be an artist's advocate. Don't singers and actors have fans?

[ftil]

Attachment 8558

I was wondering who is the painter and the title of the painting you have posted.

Too bad that you didn't posted for everybody to see it. I would easily find it.

[Zagreus]

Having read through all of this, I can only say: wow!
Will St.Luke's ever post again or has he got tired of all this fighting?
Also: I'm not an art literate nor properly educated in visual arts, but can't we agree that people might have different opinions? Just let it be. I'd like to learn about art understood through Formalism as much as I'd like to learn about art understood through Marxism, Feminism and Postcolonialism. Will you guys ever start talking about Visual Arts again instead of discussing about general topics?

[Cioran]

Having read through all of this, I can only say: wow!
Will St.Luke's ever post again or has he got tired of all this fighting?
Also: I'm not an art literate nor properly educated in visual arts, but can't we agree that people might have different opinions? Just let it be. I'd like to learn about art understood through Formalism as much as I'd like to learn about art understood through Marxism, Feminism and Postcolonialism. Will you guys ever start talking about Visual Arts again instead of discussing about general topics?

Well, I am not going to fight with anyone anymore, and I am just going to put fitil and Miyako on ignore. The latter asked me what I thought about a certain painting by Coombs, and I attempted a thoughtful response. In return, I received abuse. I will no longer tolerate this person's invective.

Of course we can agree that people might have different opinions on art. Let me reiterate a point I made earlier: in this thread, neither stlukesguild nor I are trying to define art for anyone, or say what anyone should or should not like. Alas, it is just the opposite. Ftil has set herself up as the arbiter of what is, and is not, "beauty." While I, for instance, can tell you what's good about Coombs' work, she cannot say anything good about art she doesn't like; can say nothing about all that is good (and great) in the modernist canon, or even concede that this canon has any value. This is, as I have said, breathtakingly arrogant and earth-shakingly wrong headed.

Moreover, as stlukesguild has stated, even if one is to embrace a relativism so extreme that what's good in the visual arts is solely a matter of opinion, then it remains the case that some opinions are better than others

ftil keep touting this "Almost Sunset" painting and never fails to mention that it won a prize. What she consistently and disingenuously fails to mention is that the prize was awarded by an organization that excludes from winning its prize any art that differs in the slightest from the art that Coombs makes. The prize is worthless.

Art exists in a social context, as I've said. But even so, it's not enough to say, "Let's understand this art through the prism of Marxism, Feminism, and Post-colonialism." You can do that if you wish, but if you do, you are no longer talking about art qua art. For no matter how socially enmeshed any particular work is, at the end of the day all art shares in common the practice of seeing, and converting what is seen into marks on a surface. That is the formalism behind art, and if you lose sight of this fact, as it were, then you lose sight of seeing, of art at its most essential as it has been practiced back to the days of cave paintings.

In a later post I'll state what I think is good and not so good about "Almost Sunset" and compare it to a particular work of Cezanne I have in mind. In so doing, perhaps I can show why, rightly, Cezanne is a great and important artist, and Coombs is not.

[miyako73]

Good that you'll stop spewing intellectually bereft rage and yes, nonsense.

"In so doing, perhaps I can show why, rightly, Cezanne is a great and important artist, and Coombs is not."

Still you don't get it. Oranges belong in a fruit bowl not in a pastry basket. Comparing Cezanne and Coombs? Really?

[Cioran]

Ftil and Miyako are now on Ignore. From here on in, I will talk about my own understanding of, and experience with, the visual arts. Abusive responses will be ignored and abusers will go straight to ignore.

I think someone said thumbnails are preferred here, when reproducing images. I'm not sure how to do that.

Anyway, I've looked at a bunch of Robert Coombs paintings now. Here's one:



I don't like to classify art and artists but sometimes it can be helpful as a rule of thumb. I'd classify Coombs as a neo-Impressionist.

I'll start by saying that to my way of thinking, in general, the most interesting parts of Coombs' paintings are the backgrounds (negative space) and not the foreground figures (positive space.)

In the above painting, the most interesting part is the upper left. If you cut that out and blew it up, it would be a successful painting. The least interesting parts of this painting are the mother and child, which figures express easy, banal sentimentality that has been done so many times one can't even count the number of times it has been done.

In the visual arts, local color refers to color as actually exemplified by objects in the world. Local colorists are those who attempt to reproduce, as nearly as possible, the natural colors of their subjects. It is key to successful realistic painting.

When one learns art, one discovers that one can dispense with local color. When one does that the true fun begins.

More later.

[miyako73]

You're doing good, Cioran. That's how professionals do it. You say what is interesting and what is not. You express the flaws according to your understanding. You also appreciate its merit.

Saying Cezanne is better is not how you should look at Coombs' work. You should appreciate or not appreciate his art according to what you see and feel about his painting not according to someone's work.