Andrew Wyeth's Death Offers (Another) Opportunity To Heap Scorn On "Art" World

You might find this interesting...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0487092/

Poor Kate. So unappreciated.

Abstract art seems to be an acquired taste. Try some Cy Twombly:

http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&ndsp=20&hl=en&q=cy+twombly&start=0&sa=N

I highly recommend Tom Wolfe's book The Painted Word, about the visual "art" world and the inanity of art critics over the past century or so.

sell this and pay down the debt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Fire

there is an even worse one on the opposite wall. can remember the name but the colour and composition look like something from a public outhouse.

I checked the Twombly link - lame.

It would appeal to those who wasted their time getting a degree in art history perhaps. Allows that sort to elevate themselves into thinking I appreciate something 99.9 % of the population doesn't 'get'. It rationalizes the time and money they spent in their studies and gratifies their egos. It makes them feel a part of a rarified community of taste so far above the unwashed.

I've studied art history as part of my courses for my masters in architecture and I 'get' it - and there's nothing to 'get' relative to modernism. It’s a scam and you been taken in Texas.

I'll take a Rembrandt or a Wyeth any day of the week. Twice on Sunday.

So according to Time "Modernism" means painters who can't paint just like "modern" musicians who can't play. I'll stick to the classics.

Most modern "art" won't be shown in a few hundred years time. Its sell-by date comes up pretty fast, unlike Rembrandt, Goya, DaVinci, and some "modern" artists like Van Gough, Matisse, Picasso, Dufy, Klimt, etc.

The kid artist is kind of cute, but can you even call her pieces "art," seeing as there is no planning ahead, no real thought put into her work, no artifice in their presentation? She's a TODDLER, for heaven's sake. If her mom hadn't supplied the paint, she'd be walking around bumping into furniture and clapping her hands to Raffi or Fred Penner.

Though I rather like the red piece, I doubt if it will be around in a few hundred years, unlike Wyeth's paintings, let alone in ten.

I am not an artist or an art critic but that one of the window has atmosphere that most artists never achieve.

That other one reminds me of a night years ago when I threw up in a snow drift outside a peeler bar in Edmonton.

Go ahead and flame me if you will - I care not one whit for the opinions of self proclaimed art experts. Those idiots paid millions for a canvas with a red stripe on it called 'voice of fire' and all the liberal homos went ga-ga over it.

Sheesh. Art should be an act of love, not an act of parliament.

*
i remember back when all my friends were taping
funky band posters to their walls... i went out and
bought a framed print of "christina's world".

it just spoke to me.

*

Interesting little tidbit - his brother Nathaniel worked for DuPont - and developed a polypropylene synthetic material capable of storing carbonated beverages - something I think about a lot when I have my Diet Coke :-)

Which reinforces to me that the best artists are intelligent as well as creative, and don't view the whole process as a joke, which is the case with some contemporary art.

It would be fascinating to research how the Wyeths (and our Kate) perceive light and shadow. I love the "north light" in their paintings.

i always defer to Whistler for my art theory...

"...His death will offer a timely opportunity for a broader reappraisal of his dark and often misanthropic vision and what it has to say of the society to which it speaks so clearly. "

What a load..........

I've always thought artists should include a requisite sample of their more traditional work, painting, sculpture, etc., perhaps in a small room off the main display. After I satisfy myself I'm not getting conned by a poseur, I might spend time trying to understand whatever it is they're trying to tell me with the other stuff.

I love Ken Danby's work, as much for its subjects as for its quality; it helps keep me connected to my youth in Canada. I can smell the ice when I look at his paintings; there simply is no other smell like that in the world.

I also enjoy a lot of the work at the Cordair Art Gallery in the Bay Area of California... in particular Bryan Larsen and Han Wu Shen.

Bah humbug! There are plenty of very good painters in Canada - betther than Ken Danby, for that matter - and nary a one of them is an abstract expressionist.

It all comes down to your definition of what is art. In the world of paintings, whether we have a Rubens, O'Keeffe, Wyeth, Bateman, Picasso, Bob Ross or a McMillan, they can be called art if they satisfy someone's definition.

One of my highlights of living in Texas was being able to go down the street to the Houston Museum of Fine Art and take in the exhibits. Trust me, you have to see some of this stuff in person to really appreciate it. While my daughter tended to lean towards the Georgia O'Keeffe, I was always in awe of the giant baroque paintings by the Dutch Masters. The details of the painting was truly masterful. And in the day, the church believe it or not was an integral part of the art scene, either commissioning paintings or getting art as a gift from rulers and royalty trying to get a good word in for the afterlife.

So what does all this have to do with anything? Simple, if you like something that is hanging on your wall or would like it to hang there then that is the whole point. Art critics and art snobs are an unfortunate hazard of the business. To presume to tell you what is good or bad art is preposterous. My only objection to what someone calls art is when I have to pay for it through taxes.

btw, one of my favourite paintings is "The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies" by Van Clomp.

The fact art critics refuse to face - and the source of their Olympian dismissals of popular artists - is not that their opinions are necessarily incorrect, it's that their opinions are unnecessary. They cannot handle the idea that any person is competent to look at a piece of art and decide for himself whether or not he would want it where he might see it every day.

But it is possible to understand their motivation. After all, it's not like they can earn a living in the world of art by selling their own paintings.

Paintings used to be extremely well planned out, with remarkable composition, and many hidden signals which would mean a lot to those who knew the codes, whether they be allegory, religious allusions, etc.

I think the problem with lots of modern art is that it is all too often just a mish-mash of colours without any real planning, scale, or deeper meaning

I think this acknowledges Wolfram's point.

I like both paintings actually.

I like my Barry A.F. Clarke's "Spitfire".

I hear that Merlin purr.

I would love to get a copy of Van Klomp's Fallen Madonna.

The world has largely lost all appreciation for craft and quality. Critics seem more in love with artists that search for new ways of communicating, rather than the message. The package, not the contents. As usual. Superficial analysis, star making, and pretense.

One of the cited critics derides the austere images as "puritanical". Never miss a chance to slam a puritan - you get bonus points for slamming a craftsman and Christianity at the same time.

Many of these critics would not know Quality if it etched a tattoo on one of their buttocks. What they do know is efite language that is their weapon of choice as they guard the gates of fame.

I equate "art" and its modern day denizens to journalists of the main stream media: both are dead but they just don't realize it. Art history majors being turned out by universities are interspersed with journalism majors. Both are headed for the unemployment line.

I've studied art history as part of my courses for my masters in architecture and I 'get' it - and there's nothing to 'get' relative to modernism. It’s a scam and you [have] been taken in [t]exa[n].

Paintings are a subjective experience. If they might be judged objectively, they wouldn't be art.

i may not know what 'art' is but i know what i don't like...

I would gather that his greatest failing, as far as the arts community is concerned.

Is the talent to paint realistically.

What a failing.

you can almost walk on the sniveling envy

I liked "Dogs Playing Poker" so much I went out and bought the shirt.

My favourite local artist...

http://www.roncowle.com/

I like the window one on the left to some extent. And I've seen worse abstracts than the other one.

I'm quite fond of some of the Group of Seven, particularly Lawren Harris. And I'll give a plug for the late Toni Onley.

About this art business. Not really a business, the person that paints must do it; it is in his/her nature. That is a true nature of a painter that we call an artist.
The artist came lately, wannabes got into the act because they thought that world owes them a living because they think they are painters. Those are famous because of the egoism of the critics, you see in order for a critic to be taken seriously, the critic has to have a forum and force his nonsense on to the artistocracy ™ to give weight to his word. It is akin to tight shorts.
Anyway the painting at hand Christina's World, is something to be liked.
Your agent here prefers surrealists, now the above painting does not necessarily represents surrealism, it is as close as you can get to it.
The favored painter here is Dali.
You must admit that surrealist is close to genius artists that reflect on the life as they see fit, not as others would like to tell them it is. The idea, the composition, the imagery is most exquisite.
On the other hand the painting of the kid is nothing but a bunch of smudges meaningful only to a critic that wants to be discovered regardless of reality. You give some colors and a paint brush to any kid, fifty percent of the time they will come up with something resembling the same and another fifty percent may do better.
While the painting on the right is rather pleasing to the eye, there is severe and most serious doubt that much thought went into it rather than a lot of lucky strokes of a brush that many of people alive today could do with little encouragement by a few glasses of wine.
Non academic background.
For many, many years as about 5 young men, on Sunday after church (in spite of living in socialist paradise) our tour was of all the galleries in town, at times 7, 8, 9, was the norm. These were galleries that exhibited art, not actually sold the stuff.
Many times there were paintings of the heroic socialist workers that were so gross as to define description. The soviet stuff was the worst, there was so much red (actual very intense red color) in it that it was hard to look at. Some of the soviet realism was on an exhibition in the Glenbow Gallery in Calgary in late 80’s of the past century, as Jim Peplinsky, former of Calgary Flames can attest.

Because of lack of creativity on your agent’s part, there is more to comment on.
An art critic is simply a job, it does not require any actual sense, all it requires is going to school a long time and a mouthpiece or as the case may be a column.
An art critic went to school a long time to learn how to turn a phrase, learned to know who the artists of preference are. You know, you really should not mention anyone that does not bring fame to you or is in disfavor of current artistocracy ™.
In the case of Ken Danby, sorry, the picture might as well be a photograph, from the link, you can’t tell.

"...the picture might as well be a photograph...) and yes if I commissioned a portrait I would like something that looks like me and not an explosion at the paint ball ammo dump.

Something that looks like you?

You must be a narcissist.

Why commission a portrait of myself if it looks like you texan?