(05-13-2016, 02:47 AM)taramarie Wrote: I do have to add that while i was taught to analyze all as art my personal preference is more like that of Kinser's opinion of great art. I am quite shocked pbrower calls neo-classical trash given the level of skill and detail required to get to that level of realism. I know as it has taken me a hell of a long time to get to where I am and my work has only recently started to look realistic. If my hard work is trash i may as well quit and draw up some simple blocks, call it art and get easy money because who cares about having genuine skills if some think it is trashy to care about making something look real and beautiful. I could draw blocks no problem. But drawing a person in a way where they look like they could get up and walk off the paper tells of a story of years of hard work to get to that level. Just my opinion of course. I am infuriated at simplistic drawings as they do not take the time to really work as hard as i do to get a picture just right. Kind of a spit on from those folk and even worse from those who are just admirers of work and spit on those of us who work harder than anyone to create a work of art.
Effort alone does not make an artistic enterprise noble or desirable. A laborious effort that gets sub-mediocre results is practically worthless. Having typed some banal correspondence for forty minutes at 20 words per minute is no better than getting the same results in ten minutes at 80 words per minute.
Art is almost certainly trash, no matter what its school, if it simply calls attention to the artist as a person. Some artists have been very good at that, without showing much else. If the message proves "I am a creep" or "I am insane", then one must strip the personality of the artist away to determine whether the work stands on its merits. A far nobler expression of self such as "I am a very ordinary and decent person" also needs be stripped from the artistic effort. Artists are no less vulnerable to vices than the rest of us (and I could make the case that the person who barely survives as a retail sales clerk or fast-food worker might be able to get away with very few vices because that person is unable to afford them). An artist who has any commercial success at all can get away with much that, for example, a traveling salesman could never get away with.
Art, if good, must transcend the person. One cannot say "XXX school", and say it is wonderful. There have always been bad artists, some successful in selling canvases, sculptures, etc. Drawing blocks is not enough; anyone can do that. Drawing blocks that express something interesting to someone other than an artist is another thing altogether. With little effort I could likely paint an image of the periodic table of the elements. Such might involve cubes. But it is possible to paint a bad Impressionist or even Renaissance work.
All good art distorts to some extent. If one wants a perfect image, then take a snapshot. OK, so good photography takes some timing for desired lighting and some discretion in choosing focus in angle and focus. Heck, even I am at that level. One cannot get a perfect image of a cloud by painting it, and a viewer could never know the difference in an object of such transitory appearance.
I thought the fractal (which involves selection of an image from possible others to be cast off) beautiful. Don't good writers self-edit?
The Bouguereau? It's practically boudoir 'art'. Boudoir art can be very realistic, although the reality that it depicts is banal in the extreme.
...I'd probably go primitive. I've done one canvas, just enough to realize that painting at a certain level needs little effort. Getting really good? it will take more than the three brushes that I have used. I'm going to experiment with brush strokes before I try any coherent image.
Addendum: For good reason the art academies teach neoclassical art. It is good for showing techniques and such basic realities as light and color, perspective, form, and structure. Most competent artists know that the style is exhausted of novel expression and go on to something else if they don't go into the teaching of art in an academic setting.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
