Whatever happened to real art?

[Al B. Sure!]

BeBro:

there we go... what if others like it... the vast majority of people (i'm talking about in excess of 95%) would prefer Michaelangelo over 'modern art' and you can not dispute that.

[BeBMan]

Even if those numbers were true - if 5 % think it is art, and like it - where´s the problem? I don´t like this red thing either, but that doesn´t mean it can´t be real art.

What about Picasso? Is his stuff art?

[GePap]

But woudl the people who make art go for it?

If that type of art is so darn popular, why is there not a huge market for it? I mean, wouldn;t you want such a piece in your home? 95% of the people could not give a rats ass about "high art", and they didn't care back in 1530 either.

As for the point of art: it is an exploration of the human condition. I personally don;t like most modern art. I personally don;t crae for most old sculpture or paintings either. That does not mean I think they are not art.

[Al B. Sure!]

GePap:

95% of the people could not give a rats ass about "high art", and they didn't care back in 1530 either.

i think the problem is only in the fact that art was and is costly. i heard about a painter who has a company that mass produces realistic, scenic paintings. apparently, his company is doing very well and has sold huge numbers of these paintings.

[Al B. Sure!]

BeBro:

Even if those numbers were true - if 5 % think it is art, and like it - where´s the problem?

5% of people may think Hitler or Stalin were great men... does that mean they were?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
there we go... what if others like it... the vast majority of people (i'm talking about in excess of 95%) would prefer Michaelangelo over 'modern art' and you can not dispute that.

Bah! You'll never take my comics from me.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
GePap:
i think the problem is only in the fact that art was and is costly. i heard about a painter who has a company that mass produces realistic, scenic paintings. apparently, his company is doing very well and has sold huge numbers of these paintings.

Well, there is one porblem right there for you: what is the value of a piece when it can be mass manufactured? Is each reproduction equally valuable? Or only the original? If one started to mass reporduce Mona Lisa's, well, that is the value of that?

Also, scenic pics are different from portraits and depictions of man, which are much harder to make, speically capturing emotions (even that guy on TV, with the Afro, he coudl paint a mean little friendly tree)

[Ben Kenobi]

That's an interesting criteria, Albert,

Art value proportionate to the effort spent on the piece of art.

The problem is gauging the value of effort...

[GePap]

Who makes art? The artist makes it.

lets look at this from the artist point of view:

How can I become my own man if all I do is try to immitate the works of old masters? What is the point of me carving the figures of people out of marble? Imagine a man in a suite and tie cut out of marble, what does that signify? What is the message? In an age of photographs, why do so? Is there anyting left to be done with marble?

And what about painting? What room is left for it in this day of movies? So I paint a realistic scene of what? God? Jesus? Angels? In this age of Kitsch? Normal life? How does a painting like a Michelangelo, with its soft colors and luciosuness capture the truth of modernity, with its machine age slowly drifting into information age?

[Al B. Sure!]

Well, there is one porblem right there for you: what is the value of a piece when it can be mass manufactured? Is each reproduction equally valuable? Or only the original? If one started to mass reporduce Mona Lisa's, well, that is the value of that?

the piece itself is of little monetary value... only like a hundred dollars but it is something nice for someone to put on their wall and look at and appreciate just as people come to art museums and look at and appreciate michaelangelo.

[Al B. Sure!]

GePap:

How can I become my own man if all I do is try to immitate the works of old masters? What is the point of me carving the figures of people out of marble? Imagine a man in a suite and tie cut out of marble, what does that signify? What is the message? In an age of photographs, why do so? Is there anyting left to be done with marble?

And what about painting? What room is left for it in this day of movies? So I paint a realistic scene of what? God? Jesus? Angels? In this age of Kitsch? Normal life? How does a painting like a Michelangelo, with its soft colors and luciosuness capture the truth of modernity, with its machine age slowly drifting into information age?

The Renaissance artists faced this exact same dilemna. you could have said that the Greeks and Romans had done it all but the took what was technically the same and breathed new life in sculpture and painting... i think we already had a handful of such artists like Raphael, Michaelangelo, etc. in this century... Norman Rockwell comes to mind.

[Ben Kenobi]

with its soft colors and luciosuness capture the truth of modernity, with its machine age slowly drifting into information age?

Perhaps we're overdue for some realism, and romanticism in art to counterbalance the forces of modernism.

Art does not always reflect the society at hand, but sometimes reflects an ideal.

The best art combines a bit of both, showing the ideal inside the real. The little bits of white peeking out from under coats of grime.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
BeBro:
5% of people may think Hitler or Stalin were great men... does that mean they were?

They were certainly for those 5%.

And while we have huge amounts of material about the effects of Hitler´s or Stalin´s rule to make judgements - can you come up with something similar to measure art? Or the effects of "real" and "unreal" art (while you draw arbitrarily, because according to your personal sympathies, the lines between them)? Or the meaning of art?

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
BeBro:



5% of people may think Hitler or Stalin were great men... does that mean they were?

Are we actually Godwining a thread about art?

[JohnT]

Well, for one thing we're producing more of it. We're just not doing it in the still life arts - since the 19th century the West has added the fourth dimension to representational beauty with the invention of recorded images and visuals.

Think about it: there are plenty of quality books out there that you will never read, tons of really good movies that you haven't seen yet and maybe never will, and I know that there are far more quality photographs shot every year than pictures drawn... not to mention quality websites, TV shows, etc.

We're bored with still lifes. Film and TV and books are where the Raphaels of today are, and the old forms don't hold much attraction to restless modern youth.