Maybe I'm not a cultured as I though. :- /

by Elsewhere 49 Replies latest jw friends

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  Elsewhere

  I just got back from going to the Nasher Sculpture museum in downtown Dallas. They are having a showing of a rare collection of Picasso paintings and sculptures that everyone is talking about.

  I'm starting to wonder... maybe I'm not as cultured as a thought. Nearly every time I looked at one of his works I found myself thinking: "What the hell was mug smoke'in when he did that? Are they serious??? People pay insane amounts of money for this?"

  So what is so special about his acid trip works??? What am I missing?

  Sure, there were some that I might pay a few hundred dollars for to hang on my wall... simply because the colors would go well with how my home is decorated.
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  arrowstar

  If you have trouble with that, may I suggest that you avoid the Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art or whatever its exact name is. Please explain to me how a fluorescent light hung on a wall is art? How do you explain a square of metal that was once a car as art?

  Believe me, I understand that there is beauty to be found all around us. So, too, is nonsense.

  Lisa
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  joannadandy

  He was one of the first cubists. People get hyped when people try something new.

  Honestly, I am not a huge Picasso fan...but he's not terrible.

  True Story:

  One time when I was four I was trying to draw a picture of a roman solider with crayola markers. Thick lines (rather mattise like) and a disfigured face on the page with mis-matched eyes was the result. In my mind it was coming along nicely. I showed my dad who said, "Wow, you're quite the little Picasso".

  To which I said, "Who's Picasso"

  My dad, seeing a teachable moment grabed the encyclopedia to show me who this great artist was. I looked at the paintings and burst into tears.

  I was striving to be a realist not a cubist. His compliment was lost on me.
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  cypher50

  I truly think that many people who are "art patrons" don't actually get the art either...they just like to ponder & speculate on it for days on end. I tried getting into artwork but it seems boring to me to purposefully spend an afternoon just looking at pictures in a museum setting.
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  Puternut

  Elsewhere, I understand your thinking. I was in the same position, before I studied art. And it's something not easily explained. But once you get to looking at lots of other artists, you will find that each one is unique. It doesn't always have to do with something you have to like. It's a way at looking at art that is an expression of the inner artist. Some abstract paintings are difficult to look at. But usually it brings a mood or atmosphere to the piece. You need to look at composition, form, media used, creativity, uniqueness, expression and overall experience of the artist.

  I saw a 'painting' once that wasn't a painting at all. This artist glued his paint tubes and paint brushes to the canvas rather than using paint. The overal composition was intriging, and unique. It was something totally different and hadn't done before. The 'painting' wasn't large, but sold for 85K

  So each artist is different, and you don't have to like it. It's not about that. It's about an expression of the artist and you look for; What is the artist trying to express. Once you sit down and take a long and good look at the piece, you will find many different features throughout his or her work.

  Puternut
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  bisous

  hmmmm....well let's see

  founded the Cubist movement with Georges Braque

  lived 91 years, produced works of art beginning at the age of 8 till death

  largest, most vigorous, creative and diverse output in the history of the artworld

  was always one step ahead of his contemporaries in taking art forms to the next level

  is the one name that stands out in the 20th century artworld, arguably the strongest influence on genre

  Accomplishments include styles of the Blue and Rose Periods, analytic and synthetic cubism, the classicist phase of the Twenties and formal experiments during the Thirties, the "two-faced" portraits of lovers and variations on old master paintings and finally - abstraction, in his final years

  One of the things i find interesting is how he reapproached some of his former pieces using his Cubism style; this helped me understand and interpret his new direction

  He dominated the scene during his life and on.

  You should investigate him a little further, Elsewhere, instead of trying to understand his work from one visit to a show. I think you'd find his life and history quite fascinating. He was quite a character outside of his art, very macho and a typically Spanish male (from his time).

  We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand

  -Pablo Picasso
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  Phantom Stranger

  Don't worry, elsewhere, none of us thought you were that cultured. :)

  Go read about the bombing of Guernica, pre-WWII. Practice run for the blitzkreig tactics. Read about the savagery inflicted.

  Then go look at Picassos' Guernica.

  His thing is NOT to make you think - but to make you feel.
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  Sassy

  It was a new experience for me, the first time I went to a museum. I am finding the more I go, the more I appreciate art and paintings. I guess maybe it is because one can cultivate a taste for it. I enjoy when a museum will have something nearby the painting, telling you either something about the artist or some tidbit about the painting itself of the timeframe it was in, so you can have something to focus on or understand.

  I was never develop good painting techniques, even though I have very talented family, one who made her living solely on her art, but I try to notice brushstrokes, etc, things that I somehow can not imitate, so I appreciate the work even if I don't always understand it.
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  talesin

  Art is everywhere.

  There are a lot of 'posers'. Some of Picasso's stuff was brilliant, some of it shyte, imho.

  Nowadays, a lot of galleries sell art on the premise of it being the 'new thing'. We all know it when we recognize it - some art is a bunch of self-important hooey, and others is quite meaningful.

  If it moves you - it's art. If it's a painting of a green square with a red dot, what's that about? Well, it's about someone making a lot of $$$, and telling you it's 'art'.

  IMO, an insult to those who work at their craft. Oh, well, that's the society we live in. Just DON'T BUY IT!

  Go out and buy yourself an original piece of artwork today - whether it's realistic, impressionistic, cubist or whatever - you'll know art when you see it! It makes you feel ... something.

  ... my two

  t
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  True North

  I once read an alleged quotation from Picasso in which he admitted in his later years that for quite some time he had been running a con job bilking credulous art buyers. Of course, this could have been apocryphal.

  Personally, I've never managed to "get" Jackson Pollack's thrown, dripped, and dribbled paint works, and I've never felt especially motivated to try to. However, the best artist I ever knew, a former friend of mine, told me that these were actually quite substantial works and he was someone whose opinions on art I took quite seriously. (As a "footnote" to this, I used the adjective "former" because, unfortunately, when I became a JW, I unceremoniously dumped all of my "wordly" friends.)

  BTW, An interesting book on the subject of what art is that I've read is Leo Tolstoy's "What Is Art?" You may or may not agree with Tolstoy (some reviewers on Amazon give this book only one or two stars, others all five) but I think you'll find it worthing thinking about what he has to say. For a sample, here's part of his definition of art: "To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then, by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling - this is the activity of art."