What picture do you think is overrated...

My first question is....

Who has taken an art class or attempted a painting/drawing/sculpture?

I've been fascinated by art, high and low since I was a teen, and yes I have some talent but to compose a group of people instead of just one is a HUGE feat, not to mention a fluid medium in a new technique.  That is why the Boating Party is famous.  Also, consider the context in history, before impressionism it was only religious or weatlhy and proper.  They moved it to the everyday, and this boating group are his friends and other artists.  I'm not a fan of his women tho. I prefer Matisse but he simplified and flattened.  I've had many art history classes there is a reason behind the 20th century breaking the rules, same with music of the period.

Not everything is great and nobody has to like the same things.  In an art group I drew on large paper a chair from about the same angle, the group was stunned but I could see the perspective was off especially with the back right leg so I put a few more lines to twist and flatten the perspective.  I was happy, many were not, thinking I wrecked it.  But that was what many of these artists did they pushed themselves to go beyond and play with materials and perception.

After WW2 everything exploded, after such horrors how can you paint a pretty painting?  Artists tossed out image and went abstract, experimenting with material and remember the Freud fueled existential angst? That led Pollock to to blow imagery to smithereens.  When yer the first to do something the others follow.  Rothko works, sit and meditate on them and the rich colors can move around on you, what's forefront and what's back? I saw some huge Ellsworth Kelly diamonds and as I moved back and forth I realized they were moving at the edge of my sight.  And when I walked away all I could see in the white room was the opposite color burned into my retina.

That leads me to my 2 favorite Light and space artists from California James Turrell and Robert Irwin, ab fab when you realize they are working with teasing your perception.  I've been in spaces where you got dizzy or they were so dark you had to stay 15 minutes to let your eyes adjust and shades and shapes slowly appeared and started to move around because your brain and eye needed stimulation.

I've also experienced that in some gardens I've worked on, that is why light on water is so ephemeral and enchanting.  But even Freud said "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar".    I'll shut up now I have a habit of blathering.

mudwolf posted:

After WW2 everything exploded, after such horrors how can you paint a pretty painting?  Artists tossed out image and went abstract, experimenting with material and remember the Freud fueled existential angst? That led Pollock to to blow imagery to smithereens.

That is completely untrue I'm afraid. The first 'Western' abstract pictures were painted some years before the First World War, by either Kandinsky or Malevich in Russia, closely followed by Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Francis Picabia, Piet Mondrian and František Kupka; but the Japanese and Chinese may have claims to "inventing" abstraction way before that, and it can be argued that artists like JMW Turner were moving towards abstraction way back in the 18th Century.

The Abstraction Expressionism (promoted by critics like Clement Greenberg et al in what may have been an attempt at moving the centre of the art world from Europe - and Paris in particular - to the US, and New York especially) of which I suspect you are speaking was definitely not a response to the horrors of the Second War or the Holocaust. There wasn't really much of a response to it in the visual artsts (film excepted, and only some time later) - it was left to literaure to do that.

Pollock's abstraction wasn't a response to the most bloody war in history, it springs from a peculiarly American strain of rugged - almost macho - individualism. People often look at Pollock's paintings and mistake what they see for chaos and anguish - but his painting are highly disciplined; one of the things that made Pollock a great artist was his innate sense of order and structure, despite his rather chaotic personal life. 

My example of an all over painting somewhat like a Pollock. a designer friend in LA did this for me. Once I got out to the desert and staring for a year at it I was finally able to match up the 2 left and 4 right pieces but it took a lot of music and concentration. Now sometimes I have to close my eyes to concentrate on the music.  Before this was out here all I had was the blank wall and light moving across it and fading at night, not unlike the minimalist and Turrell pieces, I almost kept it that way but I love the screen too much.

My example of flattened perspective modern art, I found this Matisse reproduction at an upscale consignment shop. I find endless joy in his works, more than Picasso, tho he take the crown for modernist existential angst with Guernica.

Life is very good in the desert tho I'm hibernating with 115 degree heat today.

mudwolf posted:

I'm sorry Mudwolf, but this kind of full-frontal nudity cannot be permitted on the forum. In the good name of Richard Dane, go put some socks on!

Oh yeah Kevin, I was focusing on NY artists, and yes the first Malevich and Russian artists were superb.  We have to give Diaghelev credit for being art minister very early on promoting the modern.  There are so many trails, and splits and rediscoveries through out Europe, I was thinking of Max Ernst and another artist I can't remember the name of who rejected the old formal rules and deliberately made ugly paintings that were surreal, trying to break from the normal.  Again,  many Artists were experimenting with materials, techniques and scale.  There really is no one right answer and take away what you want. It is too huge of a subject really, a life time of study and learning to perceive.  I do hate the large analytical or simplified art now, it doesn't move me.  I was with a friend at the new Broad museum in LA, beautiful building.  His comment after we sat outside a bit was "Expensive Relestate"

I was recently back east visiting a retired Navy friend, his mind is very fast and almost photographic and VERY opinionated, hard fact.  Constantly berating things or saying this is how it should be. He was also a huge Trump supporter, I wanted to gag.  The last night I said you can think what you want and feel superior but since I've had so much art, design and open mind that I'm way out of your league and you didn't see half of what I saw. Then I told him I was synesthetic, I hope that spelling is correct.  At some symphonies I see colors, textures or images and sometimes in meditative spaces the atmosphere becomes ephemeral and expands for me.  Others would walk thru and not notice.  He really pissed me off.  He did shut up and realize there was another opinion.

I was just at a Landscape seminar and a man who was an artist was hired by Mayor Daley with a 2 million budget to transform the public parks.  Daley wanted Chicago to be clean and better than any other city.  This man showed slides that were astounding, 20 years of blowing peoples minds with earth works, plants and objects.  A nursery wanted to cut some smaller trees out, his crew took them out and he painted them colors and then spotted and grouped them in the greenery.  He hung objects in the tree canopy so people would look up. One woman big in society complained bitterly. He asked her if she ever talked to people before about the landscape? No, Did you enver notice the parks? No. Did you ever walk in the parks? No.

And now you do? Yes.  I WIN !!!!  you and a million others now see, talk and use these beautiful spaces.

Now he's working for Disney recreating more magic around the world.  He was so incredible and creative, and that's what art does, make people notice, or see in a new way and that's why we all listen to music it is aural art, ephemeral, and mind expanding.

I have sandals under the footstool just incase someone comes over.  Formal wear is socks and sneakers these days, and always shorts. Jeans feel really odd when winter comes to town. I also have an assortment of long loose lounge pants for colder weather inside.

DrMark posted:

mudwolf posted:

I'm sorry Mudwolf, but this kind of full-frontal nudity cannot be permitted on the forum. In the good name of Richard Dane, go put some socks on!

Another case where a bit of toe-in has too much toe in!

G

GraemeH posted:

DrMark posted:

mudwolf posted:

I'm sorry Mudwolf, but this kind of full-frontal nudity cannot be permitted on the forum. In the good name of Richard Dane, go put some socks on!

Another case where a bit of toe-in has too much toe in!

G

Thoes are definitely toes out not in!