I painted a picture

[m21sniper]

Just for the record, that dragon sketch i posted was done right after i woke up, with groggy eyes, in about a half an hour...with a Bic pen, on notebook paper, and some 10 years after i had stopped sketching regularly. From memory.

I do not consider that to be very representative of "my best," nor even close, it's just all i have left. Not that i'm ashamed of it or anything. It's a pretty bad-ass looking dragon.

[Heel n Toe]

And even though I would guess that DARSICK probably has jpegs of what he would consider to be representative of his best, he's not confident enough to post them here.

Go figure, huh?

[m21sniper]

Every time i look at that dragon i remember how g-damned scary the dreams were that i had where he was chasing me and swinging that big assed axe at me! o.O

There's nothing for scale in the sketch, but the axe it's carrying was probably about 10 feet long in my dreams, which would make him about 35-40 feet long from nose to tail.

I didn't even have a spoon!

[varmint]

nice dragon.


i suspect that 200 years from now the average frazetta heavy metal album cover will be more valuable than any rothko.

[varmint]

all we're doing here is rehashing an argument than was already old when tom wolfe wrote the painted word.

of course "art" is subjective. but things like quality and skill are not. they have largely been forgotten, when not outright denounced, by the modern art community.

[Superman]

I once stood looking at some "modern art" with my sister, who is creative/artistic. I said "Boo, I get nothing from this. As near as I can tell, a monkey could have painted it. Now, if this were a landscape, and if the painter's skill was so great that I could not distinguish it from a photograph, then I'd be able to appreciate it."

She said "Jimmy, your problem is that you're evaluating it with your rational mind. You're very logical/rational and that's good, but in order to appreciate art, you have to put that part of your mind away. Art's value is in how it makes you FEEL when you view it."

It was a very helpful comment.

[m21sniper]

Well when i look at Pollock i "feel" like drinking some milk then laying down with my 5yo class mates and taking a nap.

Scribbling is tiring, afterall.

PS: Thanks varmint!

[john70t]

Originally Posted by javadog

JR

Looks like a carrier wiring diagram, or vaccuum lines in a late 70's Honda engine bay.

[DARISC]

Originally Posted by Superman

...Art's value is in how it makes you FEEL when you view it."

That's a "romantic" perspective (and not necessarily what determines worth). Another is, what does it make you THINK or wonder. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive if one does not choose to make them so.

People with no more of an interest in art other than as something to hang on their wall that pleases their eye (which is to say, most people) don't consider that "fine" art is not about decoration, or illustration, or function - indeed, "beauty" and decorativeness can be found totally lacking in many great works of art; Picasso's Guernica, for example.

Writers make statements using words, musicians use sounds and "fine" artists make visual marks to make their statements. As with serious writers, poets and musicians, fine artist's statements are not driven by what the public wants to read, listen to or look at, but rather by what drives them personally.

One can choose to dismiss what one doesn't find visually appealing or doesn't fit their personal definition of what "art' is. Or one can be interested in what reasons an artist has for expressing themself as they have, ie, what the art is "about". Therein lies a wealth of history and ongoing activity in the realm of art, a realm which has always generated scholarly examination, criticism and polemics.

That "modern" art gives rise to such emotionalism (sometimes seemingly verging on hatred) and derogatory remarks is amusing. To wonder and to ask questions is one thing; to dismiss what doesn't fit one's personal preferences in "pleasing decoration" as garbage, fraud or trash is just ignorance.

[m21sniper]

Scribble is scribble. It's just that simple.

[JCF]

Glad you are big enough to take my jab at your pic ( you are one of the last people I would want hunting me down...)

Maybe part of the reason most people don't appreciate some art is it takes work.
Getting to know a piece of art takes as much effort as getting to know a person, which in essence a work of art is.
The more you judge it by your prejudices or by what you already expect to find, the less you will learn and understand.

Also, a knowledge of the artists lifetime of work (if they are in the past) helps, but again that takes effort.
Pollock didn't just start with his action painting, it is a story developed over time and the beauty is in how it all came together in that period/style. Then it all fell apart for him.
The overwhelming majority of "artists" are never are able to get past that agonizing first phase of breaking through the wall of what is known and has been done before and the ridicule of those who don't have time or patience to try and understand the heroic (that is the apt word) efforts it takes to keep at it (through poverty and physical suffering for many) and make something coherent out of it.
If they do make it through, that is where the masterpieces lie. The ones that have a calm understanding and clarity; like "One", or "Lavender Mist" or Autumn Rhythm" ( though it is fair to call the rougher evidences of the period of struggle masterpieces, like "She Wolf" and "The Troubled Queen").
Then they are faced the the other wall of the hurricane - leaving behind what they now understand and going deeper in to the unknown psyche.
Very very few get through that one. Most get comfortable in a style and remain comfortably (Monet), or maybe uncomfortably (Manet) frozen there , selling their work and eating the not undeserved praise.
The very Greatest - Cezanne, Picasso, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Shakespeare,
Beethoven, Newton, to name a few...just keep diving deeper and deeper and bringing back to us previously unimaginable things..

IMHO

[McLovin]

Originally Posted by porsche4life

Dipso's obviously created art.... The purpose of art is to express ones emotion and incite emotion in others.... It has obviously incited emotion in you lot....

That's the definition of "art?"

Seems like a pretty low hurdle. Although one that most seem to accept.

If my emotion is "pissed off" and I want to express it, and incite emotion in others, is it therefore art if I key "F&CK YOU" all over your car? Or burn down a few hundred acres of hillside?

(Yes, I know it is a criminal act, but is is also art?)

[m21sniper]

An artist absolutely has to be able to take criticism, or you will drive yourself mad.

I took no offense at all. Quite to the contrary, it is exactly the sort of sketch that you described. It is very heavy metal-esque, but then there is a sizeable commercial market for that kind of thing, and some of it is very good.

And just for the record, my favorite modern (probably of all genres for that matter) artist is BY FAR HR Giger:



He was the designer for the Alien Creature from the movie franchise "Alien."

[JCF]

Originally Posted by McLovin

That's the definition of "art?"

Seems like a pretty low hurdle. Although one that most seem to accept.

If my emotion is "pissed off" and I want to express it, and incite emotion in others, is it therefore art if I key "F&CK YOU" all over your car? Or burn down a few hundred acres of hillside?

(Yes, I know it is a criminal act, but is is also art?)

Some people think that is a valid medium of art (violence).
Tony Shafrazzi (sic) damaged Guernica to make an "artistic statement"

I just see it as violence - or at best the very worst art (which I guess really isn't art at all), the stuff that reflects what we already are aware of only too well.

[Looking_for_911]

Well boys, if you like his work thank her; if you hate his work curse her, but we have Peggy Guggenheim to thank/blame for Jackson's success.
Had it not been for her he may have never "broken through" as an abstract expressionist.
And so many would have had fewer stones to throw.

[JCF]

Originally Posted by m21sniper

An artist absolutely has to be able to take criticism, or you will drive yourself mad.

I took no offense at all. Quite to the contrary, it is exactly the sort of sketch that you described. It is very heavy metal-esque, but then there is a sizeable commercial market for that kind of thing, and some of it is very good.

And just for the record, my favorite modern (probably of all genres for that matter) artist is BY FAR HR Giger:







He was the designer for the Alien Creature from the movie franchise "Alien."

The commercial market is not what I would use to define art, but I guess in a way it is as good as any - my guess is that the $ value of a Pollock fairly represents it's worth as clearly as the $ value of Gigers work does (or anyones).

Your taste runs as I would expect - I would have been shocked if you claimed your favorite was those kids with the huge eyes - or Matisse.

[JCF]

Originally Posted by Looking_for_911

Well boys, if you like his work thank her; if you hate his work curse her, but we have Peggy Guggenheim to thank/blame for Jackson's success.
Had it not been for her he may have never "broken through" as an abstract expressionist.
And so many would have had fewer stones to throw.

Not that simple.
If it wasn't her it would have been someone else.
Some other time.
Van Gogh had no Peggy G. and his work eventually found its place.

[john70t]

Originally Posted by JCF

I just see it as violence .

Hacking and shredding and tearing and emusifying. Rainbow and mountaintops and unicorns make Klimpt see blood.

[john70t]

"$$ value" has nothing to do with the value of "art".
One is a business, another is subjective.

[JCF]

Originally Posted by john70t

Hacking and shredding and tearing and emusifying. Rainbow and mountaintops and unicorns make Klimpt see blood.

Yes, but that exposes the complexity (and even beauty) of violence, not just the outer surface.