"GREAT" ART - Your views

[Waffle]

Anybody want to discuss art?

In another thread bobosensei  mentioned something about her father-in-law's not so favorable opinion of the statue of David in Florence Italy.  Unlike him, I don't go around saying it, but I wasn't terribly impressed with it either. (I actually am impressed at the talent that anyone could carve a "person" out of stone - but seeing the statue didn't evoke any kind of emotional response.)   I also have always thought that the Mona Lisa is a pretty ugly painting.  I had thought that seeing it in person would increase my appreciation for it - but it didn't.  And I totally do not get what is so great about any art created by Picasso.

I could give more examples of famous art that I do like, but it's always seemed odd to me how much I dislike (in the case of Mona Lisa and Picasso) some revered works.

So what world-renowned art do you dislike - or like? 

[swamp]

I don't get art. I'm far too literal.

[alabamagal]

I don't get art. I am an engineer.  I like figuring out how things work, not looking at "prettty" stuff.

I also never got poetry or symbolism.  When the teacher says "This phrase means this"  my thoughts would be "If the author meant this, why didn't he just say that?"

[grumpyhermit]

I don't really have emotional response to art. I look at it and think either "that's hideous" or "that's pretty"; not really a deep analysis.

I am more drawn to abstract art. Realism is pretty much a snooze to me. I can appreciated the skill, but that's about it. 

I am fascinated by Gerhard Richter (even sat through the long ass documentary on Netflix about him). That said, I am astounded by the price that some of his pieces can command.

[whoisjohngalt]

I like what I like..... I am having heck of a time trying to explain to my kids why some art is famous and some is not.

I think there are probably certain things in art that sustained the test of time that makes is "classic"

I don't know if I disliked Mona Lisa or statue of David, but standing there, seeing something that was created so long ago certainly makes me feel a certain way.  But then again, I like "old" stuff.  When we first came to US, I couldn't get over the "newness" of it all.  I grew up in the city that was 1500 yrs old and had certain art/architecture to it.

One of my favorite artists is Salvador Dali, though, so go figure 

[Abby Normal]

Nov 11, 2015 10:16:03 GMT -5 swamp said:

I don't get art. I'm far too literal.

About the only art I really like is Monet.  Nice, pretty pictures.

I really don't get abstract stuff.  Most of the time I have the " WTF" look on my face. 

[Anne_in_VA]

I don't get modern art at all.  I went to The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York not long ago and I just didn't get most of what they had on exhibit.  Maybe it's not my thing?

[Tiny]

I totally and completely don't get "dance" - so ballet, etc just kind of makes me scratch my head. Yeah, I get that the dancers are doing extraordinary things with their bodies and must be so much more aware of their bodies (where they are in space), etc... but it doesn't move me or inspire me or make me feel anything other than "I wish I was doing something else right now".

From my musical inexperience/lack of music knowledge - you'd assume I wouldn't get Opera (or classical music) and I will admit there's probably lots I miss - since many of the "technical" things being done go right over my head. I probably wouldn't get the music "pop culture" references (ie the music pop culture of the TIME the piece was written) if it wasn't pointed out in a pre-opera lecture or from my own research.

I know an Opera becomes more enjoyable when I know more about what was going on at the time the piece was written (is the opera purposefully poking at someone? is it actually veiled social commentary? is some part of it a tribute?), what might have motivated the writer(s), what the purpose of the piece was, etc...

Sometimes, without that info an Opera can be a very long, boring, 3 hours...

I strongly suspect most "Art" also needs the viewer to have some 'knowledge' about the time/artist/technic used to truly appreciate the piece of art - otherwise the "art" is just a nice picture or thing. I suspect that sometimes "art" is also dependent on where one is in life OR on what kinds of 'life experience' one has had.

A bit of art that was meaningful when it was done (because EVERYONE at the time was familiar with the symbols, stories, meaning of the colors used, the numinious reference) might not be all that meaningful now. 

Basically, in a room full of cups and drinking vessels - how do you figure out which one is the Holy Grail?   It's what WE project onto an object versus something that's intrinsic to the object.  (yeah, I'm an Atheist - so I can't 'see' or 'feel' when something's more holy or blessed than something else - WHEN it's out of it's context....  a holy, blessed rock tossed from a car window to the gravel on the side of the road - looks exactly like all the other bits of gravel to me. 

I think "art' has some of that quality. 

    

I think "great art" transcends it's own time/place - it touches on some aspect of 'human nature' that even after hundreds of years stills strikes a cord.

Kind a like the way "fart jokes" are funny and were funny 800 years (and probably for centuries before that)... Sorry to go to physical humor - but it's the most pervasive form of humor... it never gets old.

[gs11rmb]

I'm not remotely artistic but I like art.  If I could quit work tomorrow, I would sign up for art history classes at community college just for my own pleasure.  I can't define great art but I think in essence if a piece 'moves' you then that is what is truly important, even if it is not considered significant by art critics.  I grew up in Scotland, where Salvador Dali's "Christ of Saint John of the Cross" is probably the most famous painting in the country's various galleries.  It was a controversial purchase 60 years ago for less than 10,000 pounds but when Spain tried to buy it a decade ago for 80 million pounds, the offer was rejected.  I was home last year visiting family and took my husband to the Kevlvingrove Museum where it is housed.  It was probably 20 years since I had last seen the painting and I got goose-bumps and felt tears pricking behind my eyes.  Why?  I have no idea!  The painting simply 'moves' me.  www.dalipaintings.net/christ-of-saint-john-of-the-cross.jsp

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Art is one of those things that is subjective.  You either like something or you don't.

However when pressed our brains will make up a story as to why we consider this or that piece of art to be "better" than other one.   Our brains don't have the ability to explain the "gut feeling" so it comes up with an elaborate rational sounding story b/c we fear we'll look like idiots if we just say we like it/don't like it and can't explain why.

They've done studies where students come in to a room full of posters.  One group is told to just pick whichever piece they like.   This group often picks whichever poster that initially attracts them.  Several months later when followed up they are happy with their choice.

The second group is required to explain WHY they are picking a poster before they can take it home.  They will often go with the motivational cat poster b/c they feel the need to justify what they picked and look intelligent to the person asking the question.  They are not satisfied with their choices later on b/c they didn't pick what they liked they picked what they thought others felt they should pick.

It's the same with a lot of things.  The critics really have no clue why they like something anymore than we do but they are being paid to sound educated/high brow so their brains make up a story to justify it.   We go along with it b/c they are the "experts" and feel that we aren't capable of judging such high brow subjects on our own.

For a literature example Moby Dick was considered the biggest flop ever when it was published.  Now it's a revered classic.

[Happy prose]

I feel the same way about Broadway plays. I have never enjoyed one, so I gave up and don't go anymore. At Phantom of the Opera, we went outside at intermission, and there was a kid sidewalk performer doing tap dancing/gymnastics. I could have watched that kid all day! 

[Spellbound454]

I quite like Art and certainly have my favourites ... Like you say everyone has their own personal experience.
Favourite has to be John Everett Millais "Ophelia" This is part of it.


I like the renaissance printer Albrect Durer. This is the knight, death and the Devil

I also like the sculpter Rodin
This is the Danaid

[Tennesseer]

I have always like Dutch masters Jan Vermeer.  His play with light in has paintings has always fascinated me.

I also like Colombian Fernando Botero and the way he represents people in his larger than life paintings and sculptures.

And one of my favorites is Belgium artist James Ensor.  Again, I often see people the way he sees people.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

You like what you like, there really is no right or wrong to art.

Last weekend, we went to see Pacific Northwest Ballet's Emergence (https://www.pnb.org/season/15-16/emergence/).  We have season tickets, so probably hit about 6 shows/season.  Emergence was the last ballet, there were 3 smaller dances that were in the program.  Those were not anything like Emergence.

I didn't like it AT ALL.  I could appreciate the artistry that went into it, but the music was discordant and not enjoyable and while the dancing was excellent, it just wasn't my cup of tea.  It's not the first time that we've walked out of a ballet where we've said 'nope, not gonna do that one again'.

However, last year we went to see Carmina Burana and when we got home I went online and bought a second set of tickets to go see it the following weekend.  Thinking back, it was not horribly dissimilar from Emergence in atmosphere, which was strange.  I wonder if it had more to do with the music than anything?


www.pnb.org/repertorylist/carmina-burana/



BTW.....I went to the Rodin museum in Paris the last time I went, and that was the first time that I ever saw a sculpture/carving that made me feel emotion.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I had a hard time with Swan Lake.    I didn't get the choreographer or the director's choices when it came to some of the dances.  They were totally out of whack with the tone of the music.

Like the dance of the swans had very masculine music that didn't really mesh well with what was going on on stage.  

My mom saw it when she was in high school and said the version she saw had the prince/his hunting party dancing to that music.   Made A LOT more sense.

Then in the version she saw at the end the prince drowns trying to save Odette.   I could mentally picture that with the music but the director chose a happier ending for his version.  IMO it was very anti-climatic and the dancing didn't match the tone at all.

In general I like ballet but this one not so much.  Maybe with another director.

I've had that experience with Broadway shows as well.  I have a video version of the Broadway production of CATS that I enjoy. I went to see the touring production of it and I wanted to stab my eyeballs out.

[Tennesseer]

Nov 11, 2015 10:24:19 GMT -5 alabamagal said:

I don't get art. I am an engineer.  I like figuring out how things work, not looking at "prettty" stuff.

I also never got poetry or symbolism.  When the teacher says "This phrase means this"  my thoughts would be "If the author meant this, why didn't he just say that?"

Behind the pretty work may be a viewer's question of 'How and why did the artist use this type of technique in his drawing (or painting)'.

There are any number of techniques which an artist may use such the Renaissance canonical painting modes of chiaroscuro, cangiante, sfumato and unione. (Da Vinci used the sfumato mode in his painting of the Mona Lisa.)

This all may be of more interest to an art historian are artist but can also be useful in understanding why a painting was painted the way it is and possibly explain the reason the artist used that technique for his or her works.

Art is more than just a pretty face.

[Cookies Galore]

Art is very subjective. You like what you like, and good luck explaining it! :-) I definitely gets the feels from certain painting and pieces of music. Schroeder performing the slow movement in Beethoven's "Pathetique" (in A Boy Named Charlie Brown) mesmerized me as a child, and I still feel a swell of emotions when I hear that piece. I definitely "feel" music and dance.

Mona Lisa is small and sucks. Too many people crowded around that tiny painting.

[dannylion]

Art doesn't care whether you like it or understand it.

If you don't like it, Art is perfectly happy for you to ignore it and spend your time doing something you enjoy.

Art has better things to do with its time than to worry about whether the cool kids like it.

(Artists, on the other hand, do tend to worry about stuff like that, but they have to eat and buy shoes and stuff).

[Tennesseer]

By the way-if anyone is interested, a very good book to read about the history of art, or at least western art, through the ages, you might want to look into a book call The Story of Art by E. H. Goombrich.  It's a good read.

The Story of Art
E.H. Gombrich

A book review by Danny Yee © 2014 dannyreviews.com/
Gombrich's The Story of Art is the great classic of art history and the reasons for its popularity are clear. It is gloriously illustrated, with about 60% of this edition taken up by colour photographs, covering all the works discussed and located in just the right places in the text. And it is written without jargon and presents relatively straightforward ideas without any complex theoretical overlay. The opening is the famous "There is really no such thing as Art. There are only artists." and the focus is on the latter, on their ways of seeing and representing, and on the technical challenges they faced, not on general principles or abstractions.

The limitations of the work are also pretty obvious. There is almost nothing on non-Western art and what there is has been included because of its influence on or contrast to aspects of Western art. (There are also some uses of "primitive" that now seem dated, along with traces of Orientalism.) There's a narrow focus on "high" art, above all on painting and secondarily on architecture and sculpture, with forms such as woodcuts making occasional appearances. The works and artists covered are predictable, with only and all the most familiar featuring. And there is only a little social history, touching for example on the changes in the status of (at least some) artists that came with the Renaissance.

Full review (one of many of the book) here:

The Story of Art

[Tennesseer]

Finally, if anyone has a question about an art term, this is a good site to look them up.  It is an Internet site for "artists, collectors, students and educators
in art production, criticism, history, aesthetics, and education."

ArtLex Art Dictionary

[NastyWoman]

I wasn't too taken by the Mona Lisa and I have tried to really like/seen it more than once. Most modern art... mehhh. And if you get into the interpretation of why art is ART, you have to realize that this is very personal.  When I went back to college to get a different degree (I had been out of chemistry too long to get back in) one of the required classes I took was an art class. I'll never forget this professor going on and on about a specific Dutch painter's work (forgot who it was) and the sky he had painted.  Many others jumped on the bandwagon and had all these "deep" interpretations.  Thing is that painting was from a (now) mature preserve that I knew very well, so when asked my opinion I gave it "that's just what the sky looks like just before it's really going to come down"  I did 'fess up to the fact that I was actually a native to that specific region when I gave my opinion and while the painter may well have been trying to convey more, he really just painted what he saw. 

I do like going to museums and look at the wonderful things that have been created through the ages, but some stuff I just don't get (Pollock comes to mind among many others).

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I don't get Pollock either.   There is a huge painting of his in the Joslyn Museum. I told DH it looks like something my 5 year old painted.

[Artemis Windsong]

Great art is what draws a person and their money.  Same for anything else.  Where is the time, attention and money focused.  That is the priority.

[movingforward]

I liked David though it I wasn't overly impressed but like someone else said, seeing something that old is impressive to me.

I don't know a lot about art but I like it.  I enjoy going to art museums.  I am not into modern art.  It is just not for me.  A lot of people probably think I have no taste but as far as my home goes, I am more into stuff like Thomas Kinkade.

[Waffle]

Nov 11, 2015 14:27:39 GMT -5 The Walk of the Penguin Mich said:

You like what you like, there really is no right or wrong to art.

I don't think all the art teachers/professors know that.

[Lizard Queen]

Art captures a feeling or idea.  If you don't get it, it simply means you don't speak that language.  That's perfectly fine, IMO.  There's a lot of art that I don't get.  Sometimes an explanation can help, but I think that if an explanation is needed, it's probably just not for me anyway.

[bobosensei]

I couldn't not reply

I'd seen pictures of the David before, and didn't think much of it.  In fact a lot of the other sculptures I saw in Italy didn't make me feel any different than looking a photograph of the David.  But seeing the David in person was magical for me.  I don't know if it is because I didn't know it would be so enormous or maybe it had something to do with seeing it with so many other people.  But to me somehow the stone looked soft, and it seemed like there was movement in the statue like any second he would walk off the platform.  I had an emotional reaction to it.

Now, I don't care much for the Mona Lisa.  I don't care for a lot of renaissance art.  I do like a lot of picasso and some van gogh stuff.  But I also like some of that stuff Bob Ross paints, lol.  I don't get why Warhol is so great, and I like some jackson pollock.

I am not a visual arts fanatic.  I don't mind going to art museums, but I won't spend a lot of time in them either.  I do enjoy dance and music.  I grew up in ballet, and I plan to learn the piano and maybe even the cello one day.  I enjoy seeing all types of dance from classical ballet to krumping.  I like to hear live music.  My favorite are string instruments.  Spanish guitar, piano, violin, and cello are really moving to me, but I'm not so much into horns.  Unless it's good jazz, but even good jazz doesn't compare to the way I feel about music made by string instruments.

[Robert not Bobby]

Art is a great sexual dream or a nightmare...it relates to us, but is removed. So we look and try to figure out what it is telling us...and we all have different conclusions and talk about it over a good espresso, trying to sound informed and wise...and hip.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Nov 11, 2015 15:31:18 GMT -5 Waffle said:

Nov 11, 2015 14:27:39 GMT -5 The Walk of the Penguin Mich said:

You like what you like, there really is no right or wrong to art.

I don't think all the art teachers/professors know that.

What you like is subjective.  You can appreciate the artist's rendition and not like it, they're 2 separate entities.  

[cael]

I don't have a lot of knowledge or opinions on much art, but I prefer photography to painting. I like Ansel Adams... I like the black/white and the clean lines and the realness of it. I definitely don't get abstract stuff, and I'm usually drawn to "pretty" (according to what my brain thinks is pretty). Visual art doesn't do much for me emotionally, but music does.