I painted a picture

[island911]

+1

[DARISC]

Originally Posted by tabs

Darry anything beyond a painting on black velvet is beyond your level of taste and sophistication in art...

I cannot help but ponder (well, not reeealy) how you, Falstaffian, Zorbaesque guru of infinite wisdom, taste and prescience, who is disturbingly close to his mother and whose only vice is gluttony, arrives at that conclusion whilst knowing absolutely nothing of my taste and sophistication in art.

'Twould appear that thou art no more than a beslubbering, full-gorged canker-blossom with no more in your limp quiver than slovenly attempts to besmirch those whose qualifications render you the pitiful, goatish, flap-mouthed miscreant that you appear, akkchuly, to be.

Out! Out damned boar-pig!

[Heel n Toe]

Originally Posted by DARISC

I cannot help but ponder (well, not reeealy) how you, Falstaffian, Zorbaesque guru of infinite wisdom, taste and prescience, who is disturbingly close to his mother and whose only vice is gluttony, arrives at that conclusion whilst knowing absolutely nothing of my taste and sophistication in art.

'Twould appear that thou art no more than a beslubbering, full-gorged canker-blossom with no more in your limp quiver than slovenly attempts to besmirch those whose qualifications render you the pitiful, goatish, flap-mouthed miscreant that you appear, akkchuly, to be.

Out! Out damned boar-pig!

[DARISC]

Originally Posted by Heel n Toe

Look! There he goes again! Poor, attention deprived Heel n Toe, buzzing about aimlessly like the hapless gnat that he is, failing miserably at even that most simple task of a gnat - to be annoying.

[Heel n Toe]

Heh heh... more irony from you: referring to someone else as attention-deprived, aimless, and hapless.

Did you even run those thoughts through your brain before allowing your fingers to type them?

Post some of your art, Skippy.

[Taz's Master]

Originally Posted by DARISC

There can only be meaningful discussion of any topic if there is an agreement on a basic definition of terms. In this case, that begins with first coming to an agreement on a definition of art.

My post ##318 states how I define art as I understand it. To try to have a discussion with someone who defines it differently is pointless - unless that discussion is about the differences in our definitions of art. But until some common ground is established as far as what art even is, it's a waste of both parties time to bang away at each other about what is art and what is not from perspectives that are mutually exclusive from the start.

I doubt that you're a neanderthal and I believe that if you ever get interested in art to the extent that you decide to study it and its history in greater depth, your perspective will change a lot.

If you are not willing to accept examine any possible flaws in your concept of art, why should anyone else? Discussing why your definition is strong or weak could open new opportunities for appreciating art. And post #318 does not address either performance art, or the inherant art of a work's subject.

I think that art should serve me. If a work fails to speak to me, I am disinclined to make significant effort to allow it the opportunity to communicate the message the artist was working to produce. There's lots of art out there, I want to find work that speaks to me, not to find ways to allow it all to give voice. Life's too short, and until someone takes the time to show me the value of refining the flaws in my definition of art I'll remain a neanderthal.

[m21sniper]

Art on so many levels:

[javadog]

Nah,

That's craft. Art has no intrinsic value and no real use other than decoration. A gun clearly has other uses.

Getting back to some sort of discussion, what percentage of all art would you say you like? 10%? 40%? More?

I probably like less than 10%, which sounds odd, coming from someone for whom art is an important part of life. But, there are entire genres of the stuff that doesn't do anything for me, even thought I might be able to appreciate the skill or vision of the artist. I don't particularly like Egyptian art, most Chinese or Japanese art, Indian Art, religious art, most modern art, folk art... the list goes on and on.

The stuff that I do like, I am pretty passionate about. As I get older, I seem to focus more narrowly on specific works. While Jackson Pollock is probably my favorite modern artist, I find that I only get excited about a fraction of his works and of those, only a half dozen are good enough that I would shoot Tabs to get one.

Having said that, I don't generally criticize the works that I don't like, or harass people that don't share my particular views on art. I don't play the "this is art, that is not" game, as I think art really has no rules, nor should it. It's like freedom of speech.

I do find that I have a better appreciation for art that at first might confound me, if I can learn what the artist was trying to achieve with a particular piece. In some cases, I end up really liking a piece after being educated a little bit. As much as we study the world around us on a daily basis, we seldom do so with any serious intent and many things lie hidden from our understanding, until we dig a little deeper. Certain works have a definite psychological or emotional effect upon me and sometimes I cannot explain why, although someone with a better understanding of the human brain could identify the reason. Last year I viewed an installation that dealt with the effects of light of a single wavelength and it was very interesting; there was an amazing change in how my brain percieved what came through my eyes. Color was removed from my sight; I was seeing things soley in shades of black and white. I appeciated the experience very much.

There is a lot of modern art out there that works well in person and not at all in a picture. The same might be said for some Impressionist paintings. There are things that just don't translate well. On the other hand, I may be totally disinterested in a particular piece, even if I understand the intent. Maybe I just don't think that the idea was worth expressing. It doesn't matter, someone else is bound to like it. I just go on to the next piece.

You might like a certain painting for no particular reason that you can identify. I might be able to point out things to you that the artist has done that make the painting more interesting to your eye. For example, I could paint a still life of an orange against a plain dark background. If I then take a little of the color of the orange and work it into the background adjacent to the orange, the orange will now appear brighter to you and stand out from the background in a more pleasing way. It's a subtle effect and one that you might not notice on your own but, once it is pointed out to you, you might see that same techinique used pretty frequently. There are dozens of things like that and if you studied art a little bit you might be better equipped to understand why you like a particular piece. Spend a couple hours studying a Renoir up close and see if you don't learn something.

JR

[m21sniper]

I disagree with your assessment entirely.

Art can have purpose. For instance, most of it can double as toilet paper in a pinch.

[javadog]

Not quite clever enough. Try harder.

JR

[m21sniper]

I dunno man, by some of your standards my little one liner could fetch a million dollars if i pissed it onto a canvas first.

Of course it wouldn't be until after i'm dead....

[javadog]

You know, I really think you have more to say about art, as you seem to like making it. Why not lose the mindless disparaging remarks about modern art in general (you've made that point) and offer something of substance?

In the field of modern art, whose work interests you, and why? Feel free to refrain from commenting on stuff you don't like. There has to be at least one artist whose work interests you...

JR

[DARISC]

Originally Posted by Taz's Master

If you are not willing to accept examine any possible flaws in your concept of art, why should anyone else? Discussing why your definition is strong or weak could open new opportunities for appreciating art.

...That's precisely what I said:
"To try to have a discussion with someone who defines it differently is pointless - unless that discussion is about the differences in our definitions of art."

I'm simply saying that to discuss something, anything, effectively, there must be an agreement on a definition of terms. And I did begin by admitting that " Yes, to define art is tricky".

I cobbled togrther that categorization off the cuff in a PM to Jim Horton wherein we were chatting about the difficulties in discussing what "art" is, simply saying that "this is how it breaks down as I understand it", an attempt to define a structure delineating the various categories that art really does fall into. It's only that and certainly not immutable.

Do you disagree with the five categories I list and the rudimentary definitions for each?


And post #318 does not address either performance art,

No it doesn't. Up to this point I thought the discussion was about visual art. How are you defining performance art? Does it include theatre, music and dance? Or are you referring to the performance art that grew out of visual arts, pretty much bgeginning With Alan Kaprow's happenings? If so, that would broaden the boundaries of this discussion greatly.

or the inherant art of a work's subject.

I don't understand what that means. Could you rephrase it?

I think that art should serve me. If a work fails to speak to me, I am disinclined to make significant effort to allow it the opportunity to communicate the message the artist was working to produce. There's lots of art out there, I want to find work that speaks to me, not to find ways to allow it all to give voice.

OK fine. That's your personal statement on what you want art to do for you. Who can argue with that? Why would anyone want to argue about that? We all have our subjective preferences on everything. There could be a discussion on "subjective preferences" relating to anything - but would it really be a discussion or, in the case of art, only a list of statements saying basically "Maybe I don't know what art is, but I know what I like", "I know what art is and that's a POS, not art!", etc., etc., etc.

Life's too short, and until someone takes the time to show me the value of refining the flaws in my definition of art I'll remain a neanderthal.

Again, OK fine. But...it's not clear to me what your definition of art is, only how you think art "should serve me". By the way, my categorization isn't an attempt to "define" art, only a proposed structure to try to make it easier to "discuss" art.

And if you interpret anything in my responses to you to mean I think you're a neanderthal, I've really failed in trying to communicate with you!

..

[DARISC]

Originally Posted by javadog

Nah,...blahblahblah.......blahblahblah...see if you don't learn something.

JR

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I read your post twice and I can't find a single thing that I disagree with.

You'll have to try harder.

[m21sniper]

Originally Posted by javadog

You know, I really think you have more to say about art, as you seem to like making it. Why not lose the mindless disparaging remarks about modern art in general (you've made that point) and offer something of substance?

That was a point. If i pissed something on a canvas someone professing to be more learned than you would call it art and call you a disparaging fool for daring to question the sacred aura of my piss.

Any "art" that i like would just be disparaged by someone else as "craft" or "illustration."

See how this works?

Art critics are the worse man, i remember from my days of art class. Every one is a critic. LOL.

[javadog]

Originally Posted by m21sniper

That was a point.

Yes, it was. And you have made it over and over. Let's get past that, as I don't consider pissing on a canvas to be very interesting. I doubt anybody here would disagree with you, in that specific instance.

Back to my question: is there any modern art (defined as non-representational visual art) that interest you? Or does a piece have to be representational, to be considered art, in your mind?

JR

[DARISC]

Originally Posted by m21sniper

That was a point.

Try reading JR's question again:

"Why not lose the mindless disparaging remarks about modern art in general (you've made that point) and offer something of substance?"

Care to answer his question?

Edit: Oops - JR replied while I was typing.

[m21sniper]

Yeah, i love this.


I'm awestruck.

BTW, i actually have posted a couple things that i consider to be modern art.

Rodina Mat. The tallest statue of all time, and also made in the last 60 years.

Heckler and Koch P7. For that matter, the photograph- ALSO ART!- depicted hand carved imported Karl Nill Wood grips (works of art all on their own) and a custom made one of a kind precision optics mount hand crafted by our very own Tim Hancock- also a work of art. Furthermore the P7 itself is also an absolute masterpiece of the art of design and ergonomics. Start to finish, it's a work of art.

Every bit as a 911, or a Ferrari, or anything else.

Care to comment without disqualifying them because they do not fit into your preconceived notions of art?

It's all such a circle jerk.

[island911]

Originally Posted by m21sniper

..

Art can have purpose. For instance, most of it can double as toilet paper in a pinch.

Point Artfully made.

[m21sniper]

I am glad that i was able to articulate my point so subtly- with such nuance. I was trying to capture the spirit of Van Gogh's early works...before he was mad...It is important to understand this period of his life to truly understand his works you see...

LOL

That by the way, gentlemen, was my attempt at the art of mocking.