Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[KharBevNor]

I'm not that big a fan of abstract sculpture, except for the odd Anish Kapoor piece (especially the big ones: I saw Marsyas when it was up in the turbine hall at the Tate Modern and it impressed by its sheer scale and ambition) and Andy Goldsworthy, who is really just a whole different kettle of fish.

That said, I don't see quite what the point is about sculpture: 'art' comprises everything from installations, interventions, video art, sculpture, motion graphics, photography and typography to painting/drawing etc. Sculpture is just a form that's hard to reproduce.

Not that relevant to this thread, but I was recently drawing up a list of things I would really like to do in life, and number three was:

'Buy a Rothko painting, then put up a live web-feed of me meticulously overpainting it with a pre-raphaelite woodland scene. When it comes to court, I will say that I thought ?500,000 was a bit much for an old piece of canvas someone had tested their paint-rollers on.'

Rothko was, to coin a phrase, a fucking hack. And yes, I've seen his work in the gallery.  A pretentious art theorist tricking the avant-garde in to thinking he was on to something, a talentless wanker whose works could be replicated by a chimpanzee. Pollock too.

To put this into context, I think Marcel Duchamp was a genius.

[ekmesnz]

I'm not that big a fan of abstract sculpture, except for the odd Anish Kapoor piece (especially the big ones: I saw Marsyas when it was up in the turbine hall at the Tate Modern and it impressed by its sheer scale and ambition) and Andy Goldsworthy, who is really just a whole different kettle of fish.

That said, I don't see quite what the point is about sculpture: 'art' comprises everything from installations, interventions, video art, sculpture, motion graphics, photography and typography to painting/drawing etc. Sculpture is just a form that's hard to reproduce.

Not that relevant to this thread, but I was recently drawing up a list of things I would really like to do in life, and number three was:

'Buy a Rothko painting, then put up a live web-feed of me meticulously overpainting it with a pre-raphaelite woodland scene. When it comes to court, I will say that I thought ?500,000 was a bit much for an old piece of canvas someone had tested their paint-rollers on.'

Rothko was, to coin a phrase, a fucking hack. And yes, I've seen his work in the gallery.  A pretentious art theorist tricking the avant-garde in to thinking he was on to something, a talentless wanker whose works could be replicated by a chimpanzee. Pollock too.

To put this into context, I think Marcel Duchamp was a genius.

That's a peculiar perspective. I think Rothko and his contemporaries certainly had a lot more going for them than the dullness of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood.

Something about ready-mades catches your eye but careful painting doesn't? Please explain.

[Alarra]

I've never been a big fan of abstract work, at least not until lately when I've become more enamored with the quality of the painting than with the subject. That being said, i do respect abstract art as an art form, and having tried my hand at abstract painting myself, realize the amount of time and emotion and symbolism that can go into those types of pieces. I've also found that of late, I'm drawn more and more to the abstract pieces when I visit museums. I can truthfully say, that, at least for me, abstract works require more time, thought, energy, and emotional involvement than regular paintings. I am of the opinion that abstract works are for the artist, and society isn't necessarily supposed to understand it. That being said....I can't stand Rothko.

[TheFuriousWombat]

idk, duchamp and i don't get along. i'm not a huge fan really...
that being said i think rothko is pretty interesting. i can see your complaint with him but i don't really agree with it. same with pollock, whom i like quite a lot. i tend to prefer more abstract paintings to begin with though. i saw a show at the guggenheim on spanish art and most of it was very traditional portraits by all the "greats" and most of them bored me to tears. the only part of the show i actually enjoyed was picasso's work (luckily there was a lot of it). when i was in italy we saw quite a lot of rather uninteresting "masterpieces." some of them i loved, some of them in the many museums i went to were just....meh. when it comes to painting i like the more out there work to the more traditional.

[Alarra]

I like Duchamp a lot, and Joseph Cornell is one of my favorite artists of the moment.

[TheFuriousWombat]

TURNER!!!





frickin seascapes, man!!

[ekmesnz]

TURNER!!!

I love Turner.

[Johnny C]

Andy Goldsworthy

I love Goldsworthy. Although would Rachel Whiteread fall under the "modern abstract sculptor" label? I like a lot of her work.

[KharBevNor]

That's a peculiar perspective. I think Rothko and his contemporaries certainly had a lot more going for them than the dullness of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood.

Something about ready-mades catches your eye but careful painting doesn't? Please explain.

I appreciate the intellectual/theoretical element of Dada and Surrealism. 'Fountain' was a challenge to the entirety of art that chimes with my personal intellectual position that all things that are designed are art. Duchamps paintings are also spectacular. They are abstract, but alive with motion and power. Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 is one of my top ten favourite paintings. In Rothko I see nothing. Colour exercises blown up and backed up by pretentious drivel, saying nothing, symbolising nothing, communicating on the same level as wallpaper. Pollock works on some level as an expression of emotion, but I find it impossible to appreciate his artistry, so I don't.

Also, Turner is a genius. Rain, Steam and Speed, the second of the paintings above, is another definite entry in my top 10. Don't see how he relates to abstraction though, he was a pure romantic.

As for careful painting in Rothko vs. Pre-raphaelites, are you somehow expecting me to think that this:



Is somehow a more careful and skillful painting than this:



(incidentally another of my favourites).

[Lines]

that second one is gorgeous. who's the painter?

[KharBevNor]

It's 'The Lady of Shalott' by John William Waterhouse.

[ekmesnz]

That's a peculiar perspective. I think Rothko and his contemporaries certainly had a lot more going for them than the dullness of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood.

Something about ready-mades catches your eye but careful painting doesn't? Please explain.

I appreciate the intellectual/theoretical element of Dada and Surrealism. 'Fountain' was a challenge to the entirety of art that chimes with my personal intellectual position that all things that are designed are art. Duchamps paintings are also spectacular. They are abstract, but alive with motion and power. Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 is one of my top ten favourite paintings. In Rothko I see nothing. Colour exercises blown up and backed up by pretentious drivel, saying nothing, symbolising nothing, communicating on the same level as wallpaper. Pollock works on some level as an expression of emotion, but I find it impossible to appreciate his artistry, so I don't.

Also, Turner is a genius. Rain, Steam and Speed, the second of the paintings above, is another definite entry in my top 10. Don't see how he relates to abstraction though, he was a pure romantic.

As for careful painting in Rothko vs. Pre-raphaelites, are you somehow expecting me to think that this:

Is somehow a more careful and skillful painting than this:

(incidentally another of my favourites).

Essentially, yes. I personally believe Rothko is the better painter.

Here is the argument I gave my friend to take or leave when he declared Rothko a hack at the Tate Modern. Hanging there are six or eight canvases of mostly red tone not unlike the one pictured in your post. They are isolated in their own room and, compared with the rest of the gallery, fairly dimly lit.

They were given to the Tate after they were commissioned for a restaurant (commissioned in the sense that they asked Rothko to paint them paintings, not that they specified subject matter) and not used for whatever reason. Essentially, they WERE wanted as wallpaper. What makes them powerful, however, is the immediate gutteral response to that vivid color that the work elicits in the viewer. (See Kandinsky's essay "On Color" for related discussion.) The viewer need not know why they were painted, but merely stand in front of them to be emotionally moved as I was by their power.

In Rothko's work there is contemplation and fear. The carefully chosen proportions and subtle differences of hue provide the eye with an interesting color landscape so large that when one stands in front of it, the sheer size and emotion of the piece can, for example, make people so visibly uncomfortable that they leave the room. Rothko, in his carefully planned and executed art, has power.



The pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, on the other hand, bores me because their ideal, the rejection of mannerist technique and academic foolishness of the English Academy, resulted in fundamentally sterile paintings. They do not successfully cover any ground not explored in greater detail and competency by previous artists. For an intelligent response to mannerism and such overblown study of the figure, look to Caravaggio and the Caravaggisti, who formed an intelligent response more than two centuries earlier.

Oh, and Nude Descending a Staircase is awesome.

Edited for grammar and spelling.

[KharBevNor]

Essentially, yes. I personally believe Rothko is the better painter.

Here is the argument I gave my friend to take or leave when he declared Rothko a hack at the Tate Modern. Hanging there are six or eight canvases of mostly red tone not unlike the one pictured in your post. They are isolated in their own room and, compared with the rest of the gallery, fairly dimly lit.

They were given to the Tate after they were commissioned for a restaurant (commissioned in the sense that they asked Rothko to paint them paintings, not that they specified subject matter) and not used for whatever reason. Essentially, they WERE wanted as wallpaper. What makes them powerful, however, is the immediate gutteral response to that vivid color that the work elicits in the viewer. (See Kandinsky's essay "On Color" for related discussion.) The viewer need not know why they were painted, but merely stand in front of them to be emotionally moved as I was by their power.

In Rothko's work there is contemplation and fear. The carefully chosen proportions and subtle differences of hue provide the eye with an interesting color landscape so large that when one stands in front of it, the sheer size and emotion of the piece can, for example, make people so visibly uncomfortable that they leave the room. Rothko, in his carefully planned and executed art, has power.

Hey, I'm a British art student. I've seen Rothkos work in the tate modern, and examined it quite well. My A-Level art teacher was fucking obsessed with Rothko and Kandinsky.  Your argument contains nothing convincing at all. Standing in front of one, I can see no evidence that Rothkos work contains any intellectual depth beyond a knowledge of colour theory and colours emotional impact that would be up to par with any of my contemporaries on my course.

However, I cannot help but be dazzled by the sheer care and skill of the pre-raphaelites. The resulting work is of such overwhelming quality that, though I don't agree really with any of the movements precepts, the result is astounding. I don't see how you can even compare such meticulous and beautiful work with Rothko.

[Lines]

i wouldn't compare them nor would i say one is "better" than the other. both are executed well in their relative styles. i just happen to like the pre-Raphelite one much much more. (that doesn't mean i don't like Rothko though. i've also seen one in person, and it was a good experience.)

[ekmesnz]

Hey, I'm a British art student. I've seen Rothkos work in the tate modern, and examined it quite well. My A-Level art teacher was fucking obsessed with Rothko and Kandinsky.  Your argument contains nothing convincing at all. Standing in front of one, I can see no evidence that Rothkos work contains any intellectual depth beyond a knowledge of colour theory and colours emotional impact that would be up to par with any of my contemporaries on my course.

However, I cannot help but be dazzled by the sheer care and skill of the pre-raphaelites. The resulting work is of such overwhelming quality that, though I don't agree really with any of the movements precepts, the result is astounding. I don't see how you can even compare such meticulous and beautiful work with Rothko.

I'm not asking you to find my argument convincing. I am simply stating that while the pretty lady in the boat with the plants is sort of neat in the sense that the artist has demonstrated his ability to paint such a thing, he has painted a boring picture.

[magnanimusman]

Honestly the problem I have with most of the non-objective contemporary art is the need for context.  These pieces in general have greater difficulty in standing alone.  If you look at Brancusi sculptures e.g. bird in flight(comma) although the piece is most definitly minimalist i also stands alone without context as brilliant.  Many of these pieces are only really comprehensible to somebody who already knows or understands the artist and I believe that in the long term (e.g. fifty years from now) so much of the context will be lost that these pieces will lose much of their impact.  For the reasons of longevity I believe that art in order to be truly great needs to be able to stand independent from explanation as well as from the era of its creation and its creator.

[ekmesnz]

Honestly the problem I have with most of the non-objective contemporary art is the need for context.  These pieces in general have greater difficulty in standing alone.  If you look at Brancusi sculptures e.g. bird in flight(comma) although the piece is most definitly minimalist i also stands alone without context as brilliant.  Many of these pieces are only really comprehensible to somebody who already knows or understands the artist and I believe that in the long term (e.g. fifty years from now) so much of the context will be lost that these pieces will lose much of their impact.  For the reasons of longevity I believe that art in order to be truly great needs to be able to stand independent from explanation as well as from the era of its creation and its creator.

As I've said before, if you're not going to read what's already been said in this thread, why bother posting? Good "abstract" or "modern" art (indeed, the art regarded as "famous") needs no context. Art is and always will be standalone.

[KharBevNor]

I'm not asking you to find my argument convincing. I am simply stating that while the pretty lady in the boat with the plants is sort of neat in the sense that the artist has demonstrated his ability to paint such a thing, he has painted a boring picture.

Except he hasn't. He's painted a picture which glows with a heavenly luminosity and is alive with depth and emotional meaning. Even if you don't know the poem, the picture is probably even better. Why is the woman in the boat, where is the boat, what is she looking at, what is she feeling? It's entirely real and yet entirely unreal at the same time, the kind of thing an imaginative mind can get lost in for hours.

I do not believe that Rothko is good, or that Rothko can effectively stand alone. Can you please quote me one example of anyone you know who likes Rothko who does not have a good knowledge of the arts? Most, if not all the people I know who have ever expressed their love of Rothko to me have been artists, art lecturers, art students or art connoisseurs. Rothko has no appeal outside the insular circle of the arts, a criticism I have of a large number of modern artists. Rothko and Pollock are jokes to the large masses of people. Fucking Banksy is a better artist than Rothko.

[Lines]

Honestly the problem I have with most of the non-objective contemporary art is the need for context.  These pieces in general have greater difficulty in standing alone.  If you look at Brancusi sculptures e.g. bird in flight(comma) although the piece is most definitly minimalist i also stands alone without context as brilliant.  Many of these pieces are only really comprehensible to somebody who already knows or understands the artist and I believe that in the long term (e.g. fifty years from now) so much of the context will be lost that these pieces will lose much of their impact.  For the reasons of longevity I believe that art in order to be truly great needs to be able to stand independent from explanation as well as from the era of its creation and its creator.

As I've said before, if you're not going to read what's already been said in this thread, why bother posting? Good "abstract" or "modern" art (indeed, the art regarded as "famous") needs no context. Art is and always will be standalone.

because he felt he had something to add? no offense, but anyone can post if he/she feels like it, whether you think he/she should or not.

and what khar said is right. i have many friends who aren't all that artistic and they don't get or like rothko. even a lot of the art students i know don't like a lot of abstract work like that. i like his color, but other than that, he's not my cup of tea. i'm not going as far as khar's views, but there are other things i'd honestly rather look at. i like rothko's color, but others use color as well, such as kandinsky, van gogh, monet, as well as many contemporary artists who produce works that i find much more interesting to look at than rothko. (yes, i saw a rothko in person, but the one experience was enough. i've seen one. it was big and colorful. but i can't sit in front of it for hours like i can one of Monet's water lily paintings.)

just because you think Lady is "boring" doesn't mean it is. if you want something that's boring, go to the st. louis art museum. there's a bunch of steel plates on the floor. boring.

[ekmesnz]

Except he hasn't. He's painted a picture which glows with a heavenly luminosity and is alive with depth and emotional meaning. Even if you don't know the poem, the picture is probably even better. Why is the woman in the boat, where is the boat, what is she looking at, what is she feeling? It's entirely real and yet entirely unreal at the same time, the kind of thing an imaginative mind can get lost in for hours.

I do not believe that Rothko is good, or that Rothko can effectively stand alone. Can you please quote me one example of anyone you know who likes Rothko who does not have a good knowledge of the arts? Most, if not all the people I know who have ever expressed their love of Rothko to me have been artists, art lecturers, art students or art connoisseurs. Rothko has no appeal outside the insular circle of the arts, a criticism I have of a large number of modern artists. Rothko and Pollock are jokes to the large masses of people. Fucking Banksy is a better artist than Rothko.

I present two possibilities. Firstly, perhaps those people inclined to learn more about the arts are those with the depth of feeling and emotion necessary to enjoy a Rothko. Secondly, maybe your strictly scientific method of determining what sorts of people like and don't like Rothko is flawed.

I think it's fair to point out I haven't accused anyone of being uncultured or dim for not enjoying Rothko, but maybe the term "hack" is a little presumptuous. Isn't it?



Dear iamyourpirate,

Of course one man saying something is boring does not absolutely make it so, but I am allowed to express my opinion, right? Additionally, thought I've never been to St. Louis, I can imagine at least two configurations of steel plates that would make an interesting art piece. Now, painters you should check out! They smear oil and minerals on cloth and call it art!

[KharBevNor]

I think it's fair to point out I haven't accused anyone of being uncultured or dim for not enjoying Rothko,

Firstly, perhaps those people inclined to learn more about the arts are those with the depth of feeling and emotion necessary to enjoy a Rothko.

...

What you're basically saying is, that art is a product produced by and for a cultural elite and if you don't get it then you've got no soul.

EH URRRRR.

[ekmesnz]

...

What you're basically saying is, that art is a product produced by and for a cultural elite and if you don't get it then you've got no soul.

EH URRRRR.

There's a basic misconception going on here. In the modern age, artists produce artwork as a mode of personal expression. No one is painting a secrete code that disperses messages to a select few. It's so tempting to whip out the "Well, maybe you just don't understand." bullshit because it's too difficult to explain how breaking from centuries of established tradition doesn't make someone a poser.

[KharBevNor]

As I've made clear, I don't think that breaking from established tradition is in any way bad. I just think the way Rothko and most other abstract expressionists (and the fucking suprematist mob) broke from it was, basically, pretty crap. Maybe interesting once or twice, definitely not something to base a career or movement on. I've also said that perhaps the fact that I'm an illustrator colours my perceptions as I'am constantly striving to create art that communicates. Self expression is all fine and dandy, but it doesn't always produce results worth looking twice at. Tracey Emin anyone?

But, I'd also like to say, that even though I'm an anarchist, I don't believe that traditions should be avoided just because they're traditions. You lose centuries of technique and visual vocabulary that way. Rothko was left with a visual vocabulary that consisted entirely of shades of colour and rectangles. Sorry if that doesn't thrill me. Abstract work can get me, I must say, but the necessary element missing from Rothko is movement. Rothko looks and feels like a still-life of the inside of a dupont colour mixing machine.

[ekmesnz]

I think good artists defy tradition out of necessity, and even when this defiance results in pictures that don't use the same vocabulary as old pictures, the standards have not been lost. Art history is full of men and women who have decided specific methods do not fit within the ideological or emotional framework they seek to operate in, but the things they discard naturally resurface in new and interesting ways later.

The huge body of work the public typically decries--everything from Suprematism to Constructivism to Post-Modernism blah blah blah--came about because these people's ideas and feelings were ineffable with the visual language that the artists who came before them gave them.

However, I've said before that no one needs to enjoy looking at these things. It is enough that some of us do for that work to be declared "art".

[KharBevNor]

Also, I was never arguing that any of it wasn't art. I was just saying bad art. My interpretation of art is liberal enough to include cooking, and the novelty Simpsons mug I'm drinking my coffee out of. I define art as, roughly, any object which has had someone direct care in to its design or manufacture. A coca cola bottle is as much art as the Mona Lisa in my opinion. What I'm talking about is quality of art, which is a whole different kettle of fish.

[ekmesnz]

The phenomenon of considering a huge variety of made objects "art" is an odd one. Don't you find that this both devalues ready-mades and causes the term "art" to lose meaning? The broader the definition, the less distinct art is from anything else.

Isn't the landscape art? Language?

I hope not. There wouldn't be anything special about it, then.

[KharBevNor]

How could the landscape be art? Unless human care was invested in it, in which case yes. Of course landscaping and gardening are art. Language is an evolving system of classification, it's use is art. Brick-laying is art, boat-building is art, computer programming is art, brewing beer is art. At least, they are when they are done with care, when a craftsman or designer has invested himself into his work, that is art. Art is something that exists in all things of quality, art is true quality, ingenuity, imagination, skill, of any sort. This is widely acknowledged. Consider how we divide learning in to the arts and the sciences? Unfortunately, I haven't got a copy of the OED with me here right now, but these definitions of art from dictionary.com are relevant:

7.   the principles or methods governing any craft or branch of learning: the art of baking; the art of selling.
8.   the craft or trade using these principles or methods.
9.   skill in conducting any human activity: a master at the art of conversation.
12.   skilled workmanship, execution, or agency, as distinguished from nature.

Artistry isn't just something purely possesed by painting, drawing, sculpture and so forth, but by all forms of human creativity in which the creator invests something of their own subjective vision in the objective created..

[salada]

arguing about this sort of thing generally just riles me a lot, so i usually don't bother. it's more or less on par with arguments about politics, religion, and all that: get a couple of people who know their shit quite well but have different views on what's good or worthwhile or right in art (or politics, or whatever), and even after hours/pages of arguments, neither of them are going to have convinced the other of anything because they are both pursuing different arguments that when you pull them apart, don't really have any intersecting points.

in short:

1. pre-raphaelites bore me to tears but are technically excellent.

2. rothko's use of colour to communicate on a primal/emotional level is incredible, and i don't think it needs any background knowledge to be understood, just to be seen in person.

3. art is whatever you want it to be. except stuff with a primarily functional purpose like architecture or typography, which are architecture or typography first, then art second. invoking tiny dictionary definitions in the face of a complicated and ongoing philosophical/artistic question is probably not a terribly good idea. that said, the landscape is not art.

i'm hungry and distracted. might get some lunch. if i write any more i'll get dragged into this and i'm really not a fan of long, drawn-out internet arguments. or long, drawn-out real-life arguments, for that matter. but at least with that kind you're usually at the pub with beer and music instead of at home in front of a screen.

anyway! good day(s) to you all. this is all i've got for this thread, but i might continue to read it.

[Lines]

Dear iamyourpirate,

Of course one man saying something is boring does not absolutely make it so, but I am allowed to express my opinion, right? Additionally, thought I've never been to St. Louis, I can imagine at least two configurations of steel plates that would make an interesting art piece. Now, painters you should check out! They smear oil and minerals on cloth and call it art!

i didn't say you weren't. and the plates were arranged in a line across the floor. not that interesting. yes, painting is art. but i prefer prints, installations, sculptures in various mediums, drawings, and whatnot to painting. (maybe because so many people assume when someone says that they are an artist, they are automatically a painter. and painting isn't really my thing. printmaking is where it's at.)

[KharBevNor]

3. art is whatever you want it to be. except stuff with a primarily functional purpose like architecture or typography, which are architecture or typography first, then art second. invoking tiny dictionary definitions in the face of a complicated and ongoing philosophical/artistic question is probably not a terribly good idea. that said, the landscape is not art.

Go tell a graphics designer that typography isn't art.

Hell, go tell an architect that architecture isn't art.

They probably wouldn't teach them in art colleges otherwise.

I'm not invoking 'tiny dictionary definitions' by the way, I'm laying out a seemingly quite radically broad philosophical definition of art, then pointing out that we use the word art to refer to such things anyway, so in fact such concepts are already part of our semantics, we just create a false partition between fine art and art in general. Functionality has absolutely NOTHING to do with defining art (otherwise ShedBoatShed and Unmade Bed wouldn't have both won Turner Prizes). As I've said with Rothko, all I can do on such a subjective matter is to speak from experience, and say I felt fuck all when I saw his works in the gallery, and that I have met no one to my knowledge who enjoyed his work who wasn't very knowledgeable in the arts. To me, his work doesn't represent a very high degree of quality of ideas, execution or effect.

I loooove printmaking. I'm going to waste a week on it during the time for my self-negotiated brief, even if it has nothing to do with the final outcome.

[ekmesnz]

I think what's relevant here is the field of "Fine Art."

We all agree on something! I am a printmaker and (obviously) love it.

Architecture is first and foremost art. For example, the word for it in German is "Baukunst," or "build-art."

[Alarra]

Go printmaking! Bringing people together since...um...today.

Sorry, I'll leave this highly intellectual debate now. Have a nice day.

[Lines]

WOO! feel the love! this made my day somewhat brighter.

architecture is totally an artform. this is why the college i'm in had a famous architect design our building. (DAAP/Aronoff building by Peter Eisenman.) the way i look at it, architecture is large scale sculpture that happens to be functional. there's a lot of different aesthetics that go into making buildings interesting, so i would say it's funcional art, but it's still an art. typography is on the same level. graphic designers wouldn't appreciate it being called otherwise.

it's very odd at the college i go to, designers can take our art studios, but we can't take their design studios. i really wish i could get into a typography class, but the only ones i could get into are in the summer and summer classes tend to be not that good for other programs, supposedly. (art summer classes are easier because they tend to be taught by grad students vs. professors and it's summer and people don't care as much.)

[zaleladra]

When it comes to abstract, I tend to like it.  I am not one of those people who try to put meaning into abstracts, but i do find them nice to look at.  I draw abstracts.  I do not claim to know anything about art, but I do know what I like.

I did find it odd that I saw an abstract painting in the landscape section of the special art exhibit I went to last year... then again the choices were between landscape, still life, and portrait.  I guess it fit in with landscape better than the other two.

[fatty]

there's a famous piece featurin a white box painted on a white canvas, called sublime.

As a literary commentary it's completely accurate. It's the unseen technique.

[Kelema]

Here's the great thing about abstraction:

While a traditional art piece may be technically perfect, often times it ignores the concepts of balance and composition in favor of merely photocopying real art. Once you strip away the "oooh and aah" of the technical skill of many art pieces, you will be left with, in essence, a horrible composition. This is not to say that ALL traditional art has awful composition, there are many masterpieces which have been created with careful attention towards concept and space. That's why they're masterpieces. But now, with many traditional artists merely replicating the same landscapes, flowers, and portraits that have been done a thousand times before, much current traditional art is hardly unique or conceptually interesting.  With traditional art, one is (often) merely copying an object with hopes of, essentially, photocopying life onto a 2D plane. Abstract art must take these objects, actions, feelings, or thoughts, and communicate them by not just reproduction, but by EXPANDING upon the ideas.

Some abstract art is crap, and is just some guy drawing squares.

But some of it does go above and beyond and create a work which pulls from the viewer not just admiration for the technical skill or time invested, but an emotional (or sometimes, visceral) reaction.

Okay, so that's my two cents.

For one who may ask, or be all like "hurr hurr you only say these things because you can't draw hurr", I do both traditional AND abstract art, and either can be crappy or wonderful.

[öde]

The only thing I like about Rothko is all the fuss he's caused/causing.

[ekmesnz]

Here's the great thing about abstraction:

While a traditional art piece may be technically perfect, often times it ignores the concepts of balance and composition in favor of merely photocopying real art. Once you strip away the "oooh and aah" of the technical skill of many art pieces, you will be left with, in essence, a horrible composition. This is not to say that ALL traditional art has awful composition, there are many masterpieces which have been created with careful attention towards concept and space. That's why they're masterpieces. But now, with many traditional artists merely replicating the same landscapes, flowers, and portraits that have been done a thousand times before, much current traditional art is hardly unique or conceptually interesting.  With traditional art, one is (often) merely copying an object with hopes of, essentially, photocopying life onto a 2D plane. Abstract art must take these objects, actions, feelings, or thoughts, and communicate them by not just reproduction, but by EXPANDING upon the ideas.

Some abstract art is crap, and is just some guy drawing squares.

But some of it does go above and beyond and create a work which pulls from the viewer not just admiration for the technical skill or time invested, but an emotional (or sometimes, visceral) reaction.

Okay, so that's my two cents.

For one who may ask, or be all like "hurr hurr you only say these things because you can't draw hurr", I do both traditional AND abstract art, and either can be crappy or wonderful.

I think the instances in which composition was sacrificed for the sake of realism are few and far between since composition is one of the most fundamental concerns of art. For instance, take the Mannerists, who sought to display their viruousity by painting careful compositions of the human form.

That is not to say that bad traditional art does not exist. Of course it does.

[bujiatang]

I was in the MN Institute of Art a couple weeks ago looking at the fourth floor.  Not the parque, we just walked the fourth floor.  And there was a Dutch still life with all the food being slightly rotten.  After seeing a dozen bowls of fruit it was refreshing.

I am terrible with names, which is hardly an excuse, but I was intrigued by the aluminum block they also had with the red tube set into the top of it. 

It did not evoke an emotional response from me, but what it did do was make me think about the definition of art.  Is it a diliberate manipulation of materials? Or is it the expression of something more specific.  I love how pregnant Lichtenstein's panels are, and how Calder simplified forms with wire.

Krog's work always seemed to have a bit of anger in them, and Munch's work dark.  What annoys me is that reproductions of Munch usually are cropped.  The Scream is supposed to have a red piece of wood attached to the side of the canvas.  My point might better be, the scale of paintings also effects the affect.  I don't like Mattice's The Dance, but standing under it is very different from seeing it in a textbook.  It seems someone or other usually puts some editorial twist on the work when it is photographed and reprinted.

Off the top of my head, wasn't it Aristotle that discussed the proper aestetic distance for appreciating art...

I agree with Kelema about technicality not making something great.  The Gonzaga Cameo comes to mind.  A piece the size of a salad plate, carved in three layers from Sardonyx, it is by far the most amazing cameo the world will ever see.  It has refereces to greek culture, it has a distinct political intent, but... I wouldn't say it is attractive.  I appreciate the quality of the person who produced it, but ... Its a cameo. My mind just friezes.

[ekmesnz]

Interesting. Art can be many things.

By the way, "Den Mann ist was er isst." is kind of nonsensical. Your first article should be in the nominative case: "Der Mann ist was er isst."