fine artists we "get"

[Torkuda]

Personally I find myself almost enraged when I go to museums these days. I know, I shouldn't care so much, but much of modern art feels terrible and lazy. In fact, I figured after taking my modern art history class I might get a LITTLE more appreciation, but actually, learning just how silly the movements really are just ticked me off all the more. I "get" more than I want to "get". I just don't like most "modern art".

However that's not entirely fair. I did in my studies find a few artists and movements I enjoyed. Sure "found objects" seems stupid as well as "chromatic abstraction" and "gestural abstraction"... yea, gestural abstraction almost justifies everything you've heard from your grandpa about how museum art looks to him today. However I did find a few subjects I did love. Photorealism is one of my favorites, which must take years of study to master:

http://cdn.dailypainters.com/paintings/orange_burst_classical_realism_still_life_oranges__strawberries_with_blossoms__grapes__branch_of_cherries__lemon__seeds__dewdrops__realism_1_2a981b7a05b6d260fcb282a635f092de.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ht_0S-cNibM/T7UCuM2poPI/AAAAAAAAAGc/QgiVKYNV5lk/s1600/photorealism_001.jpg

Seeing as we are about art here to at least a degree, what are some "fine art" productions or movements you came across that actually did work for you?

 

[Barbas]

I could look at surrealist and illusionist works for hours. The same goes for most digital art and things in the field of classical realism. I love seeing the fantastic worlds surrealist painters craft. I enjoy looking at improbably devices, ships, planes and steam machines that you don't see in the real world.

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[PsychicTaco115]

I don't know what style Francis Bacon was but I admire his work

Spoiler: Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion

I also do enjoy the Abstract Expressionism movmemnt (Jackson Pollock, etc.)

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I can't say that I disagree with you about a lot of modern art feeling terrible and lazy.

I visited the Vatican museum recently, and I had a really eye opening experience about just how dull modern art really looks. You see, to get to the Sistine Chapel you have to walk through the whole museum first, including a section of the museum which is reserved for modern art, and which is right outside the entrance to the Sistine Chapel. So after walking through the entire place, seeing paintings and sculptures by some of the greatest and most well known artists in all of history I'm lead to the modern art section, and in comparison to all the great masterpieces that I've seen up to that point the modern art all looks like it was drawn by a bunch of 5 year old kids.

Going from looking at something like this:

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to something like this:

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and then from there to this:

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is just SO jarring.

It honestly makes me think like a lot of "artists" today are people who were just never told "no" in their entire lives. They decided that they want to be artists even though they have no talent, and then no one ever stopped them for fear of hurting their feelings.

I do however enjoy modern art when it looks like there was actual imagination and effort put into it. I'm a fan of a lot of Salvador Dali's stuff.

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[Torkuda]

As someone attending an art college at the moment, I strongly disagree with the notion that just because something doesn't resemble reality means that it's an inferior form of art. Movements like the one you mentioned either just put more emphasis on form rather than content (like showing the functions of color in an image), or express more of a conceptual idea that doesn't necessarily look like something from real life. While I'm personally less into abstract imagery I'm in no position to call them 'stupid'. They're all valid art forms.

With that said, I've a thing for Impressionism and Post Impressionism.

I love the penchant of some people to try to put words in people's mouths. Actually I do enjoy surrealism and futurism and even some works of cubism, none of which have a heavy emphasis on being realistic. What bothers me about the movements I mentioned earlier is that the products of such movements seem rarely judged on whether they objectively demonstrate skill or something so worthy of note. Instead they follow a process or a movement. For most art professors, if you turned in a "chromatic abstraction" for a final project, he'd say "nice color study, now where is your real homework?". I don't care if it does resemble something in the real world, just give me something I can appreciate, not something you have to explain to me before I can even start to understand how it can be called art.

 

[HardkorSB]

Graffiti is often omitted when it comes to modern art and I think that's a mistake:

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Here's some graffiti themed music video, really good stuff:

 

[Launcelot111]

I just saw a Roy Lichtenstein exhibit not too long ago, and previously, I wasn't very impressed because I just saw basic comic images and thought "great, this guy owns a printer, how amazing," but actually looking up close and seeing how meticulously he painted each ink dot and the fantastic results when he took those comic sensibilities into more abstract directions, I now think the man is amazing. On top of that, his mastery of overwrought dialogue makes him one of the very few artists who can make me laugh.

Spoiler: fuck Brad

 

[zerragonoss]

I dont really know enough about modern art to point to things I like and dislike, but the best explanation I have found for the "lazy art" your talking about is form the movie waking life. "Art was not the goal but the occasion and the method for locating our specific rhythm and varied possibilities of our time. The discovery of a true communication was what it was about, or at least the quest for such a communication; the adventure of finding it, and losing it." So basically it not like more contemporary art that is meant to speak to people fundamentally, but more of something meant to connect with others of a specific mind set that matches their own. This means that there is no real objective quality to it at all (most contemporary art has some objective standards, such as the skill required form the artist as you brought up.), as it is a subjective means of communication. Thinking of it like this I actually quite respect it, though differently the most contemporary stuff. So I its place alongside classical masterpieces questionable but it probably is just because its the crowed who make these decisions who are the ones talking to eachother

 

[Torkuda]

Graffiti is often omitted when it comes to modern art and I think that's a mistake:

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Here's some graffiti themed music video, really good stuff:

Really, when not used for gangs to mark territory like dogs, I like graffiti. It looks like it would take a lot of skill and study to pull off. It's like rock and roll, it's not as old as other forms of art, so people tend not to realize just how hard it would be to pull off well.

 

[Kevin Puszert]

photorealism:

take a photgraph.
run a filter.

Masterpiece!

 

[Kevin Puszert]

I always thought there was a market for stencil grafitti.

Just take a couple of indy labels like sketchers or vans, make a stencil, and pay kids to mark up billboards and retaining walls.

 

[Kevin Puszert]

>but more of something meant to connect with others of a specific mind set that matches their own

yes, wealthy people with no taste and too much time on their hands.

 

[Kevin Puszert]

Personally, I prefer naturalist exhibits featuring California landscapes to placing a used tampon in a cup and calling it an "exhibit". I've been to the louvre, and even after seeing my favorite painting, "Liberty Leading the People" a portrait of the french revolution by Delacroix, I have to say that beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. Many of the so called masters or classicists were just not very proficient, (understandable, as many of the secrets of light, shading, proportion and anatomy were just being discovered) there really is no substitute for an in depth understanding of anatomy, perspective, foreshortning, shading and motion.

That being said, I know a lot of artists who squander there talent selling commercial puff pieces and give up on trying to create something truly inspired, and even more who focus on atmosphere and dynamics to the exclusion of all else. Art and politics are inseperable, I find the most inspired peices are those artists are personally invested in, and thats hard to do when trying to appeal to as diverse an audience as possible.

I think the best most artists can hope for is to create a truly inspired peice within their commercial medium, or to take sabbitacals to work on something that brings them personal fufillment rather than try to proslythize their art to a disinterested public.

 

[norashepard]

The only 'fine' art I really understand is high fashion/make-up. Obviously nobody would ever wear the clothes out in public, but the process is very interesting and in depth, usually throwing together aesthetics from historical looks, fantasy, and other things, all to illicit a distinct reaction. High fashions intent is not to be so beautiful that the viewer doesn't want to look away. It is to appear such as that the viewer cannot look away.

Museum fine art (abstracts, block colors, stuff like that) is just kind of weird though and doesn't really have the cultural connections that fashion design does, so I don't get it. To me it's all just colors and shapes, which seems rather dull and boring when you try to transpose it into a world of people and ideas. Yes! We get it! Red symbolizes anger! What else do you have?

Also, a lot of (modern) critics don't consider photo-realism and other highly technical pieces "Fine Art" unless they are also interesting conceptually, or drawing in a specific way, like pointillism. It's just technical art to them. It's like a musician who can hit every note but only plays covers. What's the point? I personally don't give a flying fuck. If you can draw something pretty then you can draw something pretty. Awesome.

 

[Fox12]

I like most art. The only stuff that actually makes me angry are the people who try to make non-art. In other words people who make something as anti-art as possible. Or people who make something in order to question what art actually is, or if it exists or not. An example would be that guy who made a fountain out of a urinal. Supposedly he built it because he wanted to question what art is. To me the whole question he tried to ask was stupid, because art is subjective. Looking at pictures it was just an upside down urinal. It just comes across a pretentious to me, and the modern artists who do thing like this kind of tick me off. If you have something to say through art then say it. It doesn't even have to beautiful, it can be about ugly subject matter and still be great. Just look at The Slave Ship. What makes me mad are people who stroke their goatees while asking pointless questions in order to stroke their own ego. Real artists care more about producing good art then they do about propping up their ego.

On a personal note I like Dali's stuff. He was an interesting mad artist. I'm also a fan of Hieronymus Bosch. The Garden of Earthly Delights was entrancing.