So now the Emperor walked under his high canopy in the middle of the procession right through the streets of his capital city. And all the people standing by and those at the windows cried out, "Oh, how beautiful are our Emperor's new clothes! What a magnificent train! And how gracefully the scarf hangs!" In fact, no one would admit that he could not see these clothes which everyone seemed to think so beautiful for fear he would be called a simpleton or unfit for his office. Never before had any of the Emperor's clothes caused so much excitement as these.

Either you misunderstood me, or I misunderstood you.

I have some cultural capital to spend, so I think I can afford to say there's little validity in saying something is bad because you don't like it--or at least that a statement such as that matters. However, I'm not willling to condemn someone as a philistine either.

However, art, its worth, its aims, and its meaning, needs much more than simple value judgments.

This article by Michael Fried is a good place to begin looking at Pollock since Fried actually descriminates among Pollock's work.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-54454995.html

lol. No one has ever called me a Philistine before.

Philistine - a person who is lacking in or hostile or smugly indifferent to cultural values, intellectual pursuits, aesthetic refinement, etc., or is contentedly commonplace in ideas and tastes.

Interesting. I admit that I'm not very refined but "smugly indifferent to cultural values"? Yeah I don't know about that. A long time ago we had a discussion of Jackson Pollack and I did a little reading up on him. I tried to find examples of his early work and I didn't like what I saw. I go back and forth on Pollack's work. I'm not saying he was not an artist or that his work doesn't have value, just that I don't respect it as much as other artistic endeavors.

And I still don't like the grey squares that Arp let fall into place. You can't make me like them!

As far as my post asking Peter if he had any basis for his statements, that was not meant to be for "scientific" proof and definitely not meant in an insulting or challenging way. I was sincerely asking if he had some authority behind his statements. If he is a NYU art history professor , I am going to give his statements a lot of respect. But, if he is just asserting his opinion, like me (who can't even spell the guy's name right), than I am going to give them less credence.

Art is sensory, it's subjective, you don't have to "study" it to be able to say if a piece of work is good or not, you just have to have an opinion and know what you like and what you don't like.

That seems to be the true crux of the "problem", imo, is that everyone gets so worked up about discussing art and what is good and what isn't for some many years and it's just basically bull****.......

I totally recommend everyone watching Art School Confidential, I think it sums up what I'm trying to say and how I feel about the art world and how people treat it.

T

Way too colorful in my opinion, don't like yellow and what room would it really go good in, unless you have bold, geometric furniture in the living room, imo.


Looks "industrial" to me, too structured, wouldn't buy it, don't like it.

Looks like a hand to me, reaching out for something and it's a yucky yellow...I don't like, where would I put it?


[/QUOTE]

LOL, and this one I acutally like! It's soft to me, visually pleasing, almost seems soothing to me.


I feel as if I can see something in his works, but then I start to THINK that it's pure "throwing paint on canvas bull****" so does the brain or the emotions win with Pollock? I think the answer is "it depends" I like the 2nd one more than the 1st one as I can sense and feel more from it than the other.

T

So, as I am continuing to read this wonderful book that started this whole thread, it is beginning to point me in the direction of appreciating this form of art.

It states that when you participate in a work of art (participation is supposed to be the underlying definition to them, both with art PhDs), that you are thinking of a past, or a future, or another place in most classical arts. One purpose of art is to bring you to the now, or to confront the material drawn. When you look at a painting of a table, you would be able to visualize the back of the table. That is a form of thinking into the future. If you walked to the other side of the table, you would expect to see the back. If you look at a painting of a scenery, you may think, "one day."

Looking at abstract art is to pause time. There is no reference to past and future. It's place in time is immediate. In order to experience abstract art, one must be involved with the painting to it's fullest, almost resting his or her mind from the rest of the world.

MissT, I think this is interesting. To me, the picture looks like a guitar, and I would be able to put that in a living room and feel at home with it.

I would like to give a little love to the women in this field.

Helen Frankenthaler



Before the Caves:


Joan Mitchell

Le Grande Vallee:



Barge Peniche:

First one by Helen is awesome imo.

I think I made the basis for my statements when I asked about the value of craft. If anyone can reproduce a "piece of art" with the same material and a few basic intructions, I don't think it is of artistic value. If you would be unable to distinguish my amateur painting from a Pollock, then what is so great about him? Should not my work be given a similar value?

As for my background, I have been priveleged to be at some of the great art museums of the world, and I dabble in various artistic pursuits, but I am by no means a PHD.

Peter,

If I couldn't discern the difference between your Pollock and Pollock's Pollock, then I would say I'm not a very good judge of what makes Pollock's work distinguishable. However, I certainly believe a Pollock expert could see the difference readily. Also, I think it may be easier to "reproduce" a Rembrandt that would fool an expert than to reproduce an adequate Pollock fake.

Perhaps you've seen Welles's F for Fake? The "artist" de Hory's fakes, it seems, fooled a great many experts. (I also love Welles's take on what exactly constitutes an original in his film.)

In a post above, I described rather simply Arthur Danto's stance towards the question you pose. His answer would be that your amateur painting--even if indistinguishable from a Pollock--would not have the same worth because your intent differs. Again, I'm not sure I buy that theoretical approach, yet as Danto sets it forth in his important book, it may be justified.

Would my indistinguishable copy of Rembrandt's The Man with the Golden Helmet mean as much to you as Rembrandt's?

If it was done by you, John Cole, I would treasure it.

I don't think we can afford to presume either that we have greater cultural capital than another nor that it necessarily matters, nor should we assume that someone not liking something is the only reason he might be saying it is crap.

There can be reasons for things, but those reasons might carry more weight with one person than another. Some things don't lend themselves to a single definitive resolution. It's possible to have more than one good argument, and I can't agree with a conception of art that is so far out of the realm of visceral impact and uniquely personal feeling that it can be entirely deconstructed into an argument anyway.

I understand the appeal of thinking that way, but it's kind of "Thinking Lite." Really ideas should rise and fall on their own merit, not based on whom they are associated with.

If I remember my Chinese art particulars well, I seem to recall that a reproduction can be as highly valued as an original. It is thought that the challenge of the copying artist in mimicking the style of the original is in itself a very high art form as it requires that the second artist subliminate their own artistic expression in order to learn the way of the original master. This is thought to be as great a challenge as creating the original work.

I'm still rooting around for the reference. I believe it came out of Bradley Smith and Wan-go Weng's "China, A History in Art".

That does sound particularly appropriate to China, where they regularly knock down historical buildings once they become popular and rebuild them again to look better, astonishing Westerners. Each culture thinks the other "doesn't get it."

I'm trying only to suggest that it's fine to say you don't like a work of art, but the leap to "It's crap" from "I don't like it" can't carry much weight. I do, however, like arguments, and I use the word "arguments" to mean criticism. Without good criticism, I can't know what I do know about certain works of art. I'm also not saying that visceral impact and personal feelings play no part in criticism, but if that were all criticism amounted to, then I'd feel impoverished.

Also, I don't want to suggest that criticism (and perhaps "interpretation" is a better word) needs to work like science. Good critics help us to understand our reactions to works of art, whether those reactions are emotional, aesthetic, intellectual, or visceral. I, for one, like to know what produces this or that effect. Sometimes critics help me reach that sort of understanding.

Yes, this sounds valid. Beginning Asian writers often have trouble with plagiarism since they figure that it's better to repeat what someone else has said if you can't do better than the original. Western art, however, (never mind art collectors) places much more emphasis on "originallity."

I have been practicing something that is helping me appreciate art, even pieces that I don't like.

Most people look at a piece of art and just pass it up with a snap judgement. I have been looking at pieces of art not thinking about the finished work, but by looking at the smaller parts of the work, thinking about each detail. You would be astounded at how doing this not only increases your involvement in the work, but helps you understand works that you may not like.

For example, if you look at each section of the Picasso that I posted, you would start with the skulls and continue on to the legs. Then you would think about it as a shap (sort of a yin yang). The complete picture is analyzed bit by bit. After you are done with that step, look away for 5 seconds and then look at the picture again. This time, think of what emotional response you have. I guarantee it will be different than the response you had before.

There are a few different ideas about the right and left eye corresponding to different parts of a person's make-up, as they correspond to different parts of the brain and different aspects of the person in some yogic traditions. Try masking off one side or another of a person's picture or painting and seeing what you think of that person or what the portrait tells you. It will often be quite different from what you feel when looking at both eyes, or switching from looking at one eye to looking at the other. You may feel like someone's playing a trick on you, as though you were looking at two different people, or the same person at two very different times, perhaps in a way you hadn't considered before.

didn't see it mentioned before, but Pollack's paintings are incredibly more satisfying in person. I never though much of him until I saw them myself. There will probably never be a way for me to quantify into words why I thought it was appealing, but it just was very visually appealing.

I disagree. Not with the "thinking lite" part, that I will concede. But, I think your objection is misplaced. Admittedly, I may have misrepresented my point. What I am asserting is that some people have more "authority" to make statements.

For example, I grew up in the tile business. I was a journeyman tile mechanic at 17. On many social occasions, I have been the guest of someone (not in the trade) who has tiled something in their home.

Almost always my gf is with me and the hosts will show both of us the results of all their hard work. Most often, the amateur tile installer's S.O. will say (while they both beam big dumb smiles at us) "we did this ourselves".

My gf and I will always tell them how nice their job (backsplash, tub surround, kitchen floor etc.) looks.

Later, my gf will ask me if they did a nice job. She always thinks that the amateur installation looks good and that the people have done a nice job. Usually the opposite is true. Between the two of us, I consider myself to be the authority on the subject.

Obviously, tile work isn't the subject under discussion. But, it does serve as corollary to underscore my point from the prior post.

Yes, but you are the authority because of concrete things, not because you are you.

In logic, one of the most common fallacies is the ad hominem one, or "argument against the man" rather than against the idea. What makes an ad hominem attack illogical is that the truth of a proposition doesn't depend upon who utters it. It works the other way around too; the truth of a proposition isn't bolstered a whit when uttered by someone we esteem.

At some point in talking about art we have to admit that an inescapable part of art appreciation and valuation simply comes down to what we like. Art drifts in and out of fashion, as do its experts and champions. It may have science in it, but it is not itself science. Its value will change over time and it will always, and rightly, be open for discussion and new experience -- by absolutely anyone -- rather than beyond it.

Even Shakespeare has been spat on. It will happen to many favorites in time.

True, true, true. But, my argument with Peter is about Pollock being crap or not. I believe that the true answer to that question is concrete and definable. Unless Peter can formulate an argument with a greater derivation than "I think", I am going with my previous understanding. If he some insight that I am not privy to, or some background that lends strength to his argument, I am willing to reconsider my position.

Again, you are right in your reply, because even if Pollock's works were proven to be a clever hoax, I would still like them.