What picture do you think is overrated...

I agree, it's Jackson Pollocks.

La Mariée by Marc Chagall

"Happiness isn't happiness without a violin-playing goat".

I don't get it...

Not paintings a such, but I struggled to,get any artistic plapeasure from many of the YBAs. I tried, did the big exhibitions, the retrospectives, viewings at Victoria Moro, but I drew a complete blank with Damien Hirst,  the Chapman brothers and Tracey Emin. I loved some of them, Rachel Whiteread is a real favourite.

Hirst and Emin are marketing success stories posing as artists - cynical and completely overrated shite.

I agree with Eloise, I don't really get Van Gogh's chair. Among the Old Masters, most Reubens, Parmigiano, David and Courbet all leave me cold. I can see the importance of El Greco as a revolutionary painter but his work is hideous to look at. Cezanne is anotther hugely important and influential painter whose art I find meh.

As for Warhol, he is just the non-thinking man's Marcel Duchamp.

Huge posted:

I agree, it's Jackson Pollocks.

Actually I rather like Jackson Pollock. His work is quite varied compared to the stereotypical splodges he's best known for, and even some of these are attractive to me. Very hard to appreciate unless you see them in the flesh, though, which I think can be said of most art.

Picasso's Guernica.

Never been that hot on Picasso. His white male bravado has not been in vogue for a while now, and I can't see that changing for a good few decades or so.

Eloise posted:

Okay so there is a thread "What is your favourite picture" ... but lets turn that on its head.  What acclaimed picture / artist (modern or historical) do you think is over rated?  What picture do you just not get the appeal of.  To quote Graham Norton (omg ... yes sometimes in the car on a weekend) ... "I can't believe its not better!".

So my entry in the "WTF! Why?" category...

Don't get me wrong ... I see great artistry and beauty, even genius, in much of Van Gough's work ... but this ... what is anyone thinking holding it up as great work?  I thought perhaps seeing it "in the flesh" would help.  But no ... its just a picture of a chair ... if it was a photograph I'd say Van Gough was putting his camera down and caught the shutter release accidentally.

Why?  Someone ... help me ... what is the appeal of this painting that so many people buy copies to hang on their wall?

Just to reiterate, this isn't about bad art as such.  But my question is specifically about art which is held up as being inspirational or of great value (not necessarily financial value) ... but you just don't "get'.

Why was Debussy in the same time trying to avoid tonality? Could it be the same reason as why Vincent was avoiding a 'right' perspective?

I could have gone for other Renoir pictures but this shares much of what has me scratching my head about his work. I find them over- sentimental and his faces of women in particular just look all the same without being remotely interesting. Going to a gallery and seeing a few en-masse just convinced me more how little I liked them, and that I don't actually think he is very good!

I also do not 'get' R B Kitaj at all either despite enjoying many of his contemporaries such as Auerbach and Lucian Freud. 

Bruce

TOBYJUG posted:

 His white male bravado has not been in vogue for a while now, and I can't see that changing for a good few decades or so.

What on earth is 'white male bravado'? You sound like a Groaniad columnist. Old Pablo's pictures are  still among the top-selling reproductions (cards, posters, prints etc) along with Van Gogh, Monet and Matisse. [NB The most reproduced artist (and picture) of all time is Arnold Machin's silhouette of the Queen, which has been purchased around 300 billion times in the last 50 years - it's used on UK coinage and postage stamps. ]

The vast majority of contemporary artists are too small - both in terms of vision, ability and ambition - to emulate his achievements, but his influence on 20th/21st century art is inescapable; like that of The Beatles on popular music.

Kevin-W posted:

Hirst and Emin are marketing success stories posing as artists - cynical and completely overrated shite.

I agree with Eloise, I don't really get Van Gogh's chair. Among the Old Masters, most Reubens, Parmigiano, David and Courbet all leave me cold. I can see the importance of El Greco as a revolutionary painter but his work is hideous to look at. Cezanne is anotther hugely important and influential painter whose art I find meh.

As for Warhol, he is just the non-thinking man's Marcel Duchamp.

I could happily live without ever seeing another piece by Emin, but I have quite liked some of Hirst's earlier stuff. His skull-themed work appealed to me for some reason. He seems to have lost it completely now, though.

I am never sure about 'Guernica' either but the context of the picture is inescapable. I don't think you can really see it as just an image alone. I also think Picasso suffered from some serious quality control issues especially as he got older and some later stuff is pretty rubbish.

Like a music review; I preferred his early work before he got too famous!

Bruce

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

I could have gone for other Renoir pictures but this shares much of what has me scratching my head about his work. I find them over- sentimental and his faces of women in particular just look all the same without being remotely interesting. Going to a gallery and seeing a few en-masse just convinced me more how little I liked them, and that I don't actually think he is very good!

Watch Amélie ... you will get deeper meaning from the Luncheon of the Boating Party.

There is an interesting space between the man in the brown hat, and the young lady leaning on the railings.  So much unspoken between them, so many thoughts in her head.  Her unspoken desires, whether for him or perhaps for someone else she cannot be with.  And all around, people relaxing, getting on with their lives ... while she is left watching, dreaming.

In case you didn't guess ... I like pictures with a hidden, untold and unknown story (but I've no desire to know who left his pipe on Vincent's chair or why).

To be honest I think the Mona Lisa is overrated. Then again I don't really like portraits as a genre.

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

I also think Picasso suffered from some serious quality control issues especially as he got older and some later stuff is pretty rubbish.

Thats perhaps part of what I was thinking when starting this thread.  There are some artists who's whole oeuvre is considered sacrosanct almost religiously and its heretical to suggest sometimes just because its a Van Gough or a Picasso its still a bit rubbish!

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

I am never sure about 'Guernica' either but the context of the picture is inescapable. I don't think you can really see it as just an image alone. I also think Picasso suffered from some serious quality control issues especially as he got older and some later stuff is pretty rubbish.

Like a music review; I preferred his early work before he got too famous!

Bruce

In the case of Guernica, visually speaking I'm not that enamoured of it; but, as you say, put into context, and with it's meaning known to the viewer, I do believe it's a great work.

Most of Picasso's other work leaves me deeply unmoved.

Eloise, I don't think any art historian would dispute the fact that the quality of Picasso's output declined after the war, although there is still a lot of magnificent work from the 1945-73 period.

What is almost 'sacrosanct' is Picasso's status as one of THE three or four greats of Western art, along with LDV, Michaelangelo and Rembrandt. Knowing his vast oeuvre as I do, I see no reason to argue with that.

G

Eloise posted:

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

I could have gone for other Renoir pictures but this shares much of what has me scratching my head about his work. I find them over- sentimental and his faces of women in particular just look all the same without being remotely interesting. Going to a gallery and seeing a few en-masse just convinced me more how little I liked them, and that I don't actually think he is very good!

Watch Amélie ... you will get deeper meaning from the Luncheon of the Boating Party.

There is an interesting space between the man in the brown hat, and the young lady leaning on the railings.  So much unspoken between them, so many thoughts in her head.  Her unspoken desires, whether for him or perhaps for someone else she cannot be with.  And all around, people relaxing, getting on with their lives ... while she is left watching, dreaming.

In case you didn't guess ... I like pictures with a hidden, untold and unknown story (but I've no desire to know who left his pipe on Vincent's chair or why).

I agree that the group has some interesting interactions and is actually a pretty good bit of composition but it is his fuzzy-felt women I cannot abide. They are almost all identical throughout his work. The three main female faces in the picture are essentially the same and this was not the best/worst example, I could have chosen this one below for example. For me this is not just yucky, it is not very good either!

Picasso and Renoir dissed in one thread. Nobody is safe.

Nice examples of freedom of expression, constructive and engaging debate in this thread. You see, we can do it!

A few years ago we went to the Rothko exhibition at the Tate Modern. Being a bit cynical about his work I joked to my other half that one his rectangles was hung upside down.  A few days later it was reported that it was. So I think his stuff is overated or perhaps its just the otherway round.

Always makes me laugh.

Ok, painted a few million years ago but I'm sure even Brian Sewell would have a word or two to say about it!

Tony2011 posted:

Ok, painted a few million years ago but I'm sure even Brian Sewell would have a word or two to say about it!

Now I think that is underrated!

Daveas posted:

A few years ago we went to the Rothko exhibition at the Tate Modern. Being a bit cynical about his work I joked to my other half that one his rectangles was hung upside down.  A few days later it was reported that it was. So I think his stuff is overated or perhaps its just the otherway round.

Perhaps you’d have enjoyed his work more if you’d seen it the right way up!

Eloise posted:

Daveas posted:

A few years ago we went to the Rothko exhibition at the Tate Modern. Being a bit cynical about his work I joked to my other half that one his rectangles was hung upside down.  A few days later it was reported that it was. So I think his stuff is overated or perhaps its just the otherway round.

Perhaps you’d have enjoyed his work more if you’d seen it the right way up!

Rothko's works are obviously directional.