I was discussing this just last week with a guy. He was an art major in college. Like me, he did not care for abstract art. If you want to see some junk, look at the work of Kevin Pollack. When I was young, I was intimidated by the artsy types. Now, I judge art by my own tastes. Some I don't like at all, some I like, but not want to have in my house, and some I would like to buy and take home.
Maybe I'm not a cultured as I though. :- /
by Elsewhere 49 Replies latest jw friends
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Phantom Stranger
OK, that's it, now I am worked up! ;)
The last one is Guernica. It is intended to evoke the horror of war, and it is one of the most powerful pieces of modern art ever produced.
From The Shock of the New, Art and the Century of Change, by Robert Hughes
Only one humane, political work of art in the last fifty years has
achieved real fame -- Picasso's Guernica, 1937. It is the last of the
line of formal images of battle and suffering that runs from Uccello's
Rout of San Romano through Tintoretto to Rubens, and thence to Goya's
Third of May and Delacroix's Massacre at Chios. It was inspired by an
act of war, the bombing of a Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.
The destruction of Guernica was carried out by German aircraft, manned
by German pilots, at the request of the Spanish Nationalist commander,
General Emilio Mola. Because the Republican government of Spain had
granted autonomy to the Basques, Guernica was the capital city of an
independent republic. Its razing was taken up by the world press,
beginning with The Times in London, as the arch-symbol of Fascist
barbarity. Thus Picasso's painting shared the exemplary fame of the
event, becoming as well known a memorial of catastrophe as Tennyson's
Charge of the Light Brigade had been eighty years before.
Guernica is the most powerful invective against violence in modern
art, but it was not wholly inspired by the war: its motifs -- the
weeping woman, the horse, the bull, had been running through Picasso's
work for years before Guernica brought them together. -
bisous
I feel ya Phantom....
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Phantom Stranger
Yeah, I used to have this (a print) hanging in my home... but I decided I didn't want it there - too powerful.
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True North
Hey CHEVYSNTATS, That's so cool that you got to visit that museum. The film you're referring to would be "Un Chien Andalou" (An Andalusian Dog) with Dali's collaborator having been Luis Buñuel. Boy, that takes me back. I must have been only eighteen or so the last time I saw that. How did you like the scene with the guy watching the ants crawl around the hole in his hand?! Buñuel went on to make several movies and at least was, as I recall, rather well regarded by highbrow film critics, particularly for his film "The Exterminating Angel".
Continuing my trip down memory lane, if I may, back when I was around nineteen (before I became a JW) I ran into a friend of mine who was a talented commercial and genre artist. He had just purchased a large "coffee-table" book of Dali's work. He seemed quite offended when I told him that while I liked much of Dali's work, I thought that Dali had settled on working a "schtick," repeatedly trotting out a bag of tricks (though very good tricks they were). My friend's retort was that I just couldn't appreciate Dali because I wasn't an artist. I can understand one artist appreciating another's impressive technique but I think that great technique doesn't necessarily make great art and that to require one to be an artist to appreciate one's work is less than ideal.
In any case, I was once very fond of surrealist art, my favorite being the art of Max Ernst. (Unfortunately, I lost my devotion to art and film when I became a JW and I haven't really regained it, although I've been out of the org. for twenty years. Hmmm ... I'm glad this thread has happened -- this gives me something to think about. Anyone else have a similar experience of JW-related loss? Maybe it would be a useful topic for another thread.)
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asleif_dufansdottir
I was talking about something along these lines with some of my friends who are in museum studies last night. I was saying that art was one of those subjects I felt I didn't understand well because I'd always been in music, and it was only the people who weren't in music classes that got to take art in school.
I think it's like anything else...movies, music, literature...it's not always supposed to be pretty. Lots of times it's supposed to make you think, or feel, and is a commentary about something the artist feels deeply passionate about.
Chopin's "Revolutionary Etude" most people find nice to listen to, but it's also very stormy and emotional because it's got a lot of his feelings about the political situation in Poland (he was unhappy about it). Moonlight Sonata is about love (most people think) but it's sad, too.
Literature's like this too. Lots of great literature is kind of depressing, because it wasn't written to entertain people...it was written because the author had an important message he or she wanted to get across...like in The Grapes of Wrath, or something.
Most of us just want to be entertained, which is fine, but we can't expect all artists, musicians and writers to just live to entertain us. They have causes they are passionate about, and they use their art as a tool, and it can be a powerful one. People got up in arms about slavery, not because of news items, but because of books like "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (ok, I'm not a lit person, that might not be great literature)
I don't go to movies very often. When I do, I want to be entertained. I want escapism. However, I have friends who see lots of movies and just love movies that are arty, independent, and have a 'message'...I think the less involved we are in whatever form of art, the more we want light enjoyment. The more we become involved in whatever art field, the more we enjoy things that are more "serious".
As far as "art" art...I'll always love the impressionists and probably never have a clue about "serious" art.
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Farkel
Elsewhere,
Fogetaboutit. Picasso was a pimp! On the otherhand, he was a brilliant busniessman! This has NOTHING to do with his paintings. Except for his "Blue Period" in the early 20th Century, his painting are all shit. And he knew it. He was a master panderer of shit, though.
: They are having a showing of a rare collection of Picasso paintings and sculptures that everyone is talking about.
I wouldn't walk two blocks to see that crap. There are a number of Picassos in the Los Angeles Museum of Art and I've seen them. I barf at them. There are also Manet's, Pizarros and many others from the impressionistic period. Some are great, some are good, and some are shit. I prefer a good Rembrandt, which the LA museum also offers.
I was in NYC when the Metropolitan Art Museum had managed to collect ALL known Monet paintings from private collections and museums in the entire world. It was a wonderful experience for me. I'm not a fan of Monet or any of his contemporaries, (except Degas) but I enjoyed the exhibit. It was a once-in-a-lifetime exhibit, sort of like seeing the treasures of Tutankamen when they toured this Country some twenty or so years ago. I missed that one. Dang.
The impressionist painters influenced such musicians as Debussy and Ravel, and for that, I am forever grateful, so I must be kind to them, afterall.
Farkel
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bisous
Farkel:
1. I agree that Picasso (and some of his offspring) was (and are) master businesspersons (since his daughter carries the torch, in part).
2. I puke at your barfing. Your taste is all in your mouth (and it probably is pretty crappy with all that barfing going on).
3. Edited to add: # 2 was (slightly) in jest. Farkel is so out there with his condemnations, I couldn't resist!
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Xena
Art is subjective....one man's treasure is another's trash and visa versa. That's the cool thing about it
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bisous
btt
bwoohahahha
