4 ms·

Also, it's not as easy as it looks to make "modern" art work. It may look easy to make a Jackson Pollock, but it's not so easy to not have it turn to mud as you

by entee 11y ago

Also, it's not as easy as it looks to make "modern" art work. It may look easy to make a Jackson Pollock, but it's not so easy to not have it turn to mud as you make it. Perhaps not as technically difficult as an old master painting, but not necessarily easy. Beyond that, the skill in composition, understanding the message you want to communicate, and doing so effectively is very much present in modern art. That said, I wonder how many pieces in our current modern art museums will have real staying power. Art is hard to define, but I think to have staying power it needs to speak in some way to the larger human condition. A lot of modern art seems to ring only one note, with so much context being required for understanding that maybe it'll be hard for someone 50 years hence to relate.

danieltillett 11y ago
Leaving aside artistic merit, a lot of modern art is poorly constructed out of unstable materials. We may not have much of todays modern art in 50 years purely because the artists don’t know how (or don’t want) to make something that will last.
- entee 11y ago
  True, not to mention performance art which by definition is ephemeral. I wish there was some middle ground between the avant-guarde that Collins decries and some of the more recent ideas in art. I think he's not correct in wholesale rejection of everything post-1870. That throws out even semi-representational work like impressionism, fauvism, and surrealism just to name a few.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    >I think he's not correct in wholesale rejection of everything post-1870. It comes down to taste, of course, but I take strong exception to the post-1870 cutoff. I actually like a lot of Pollock's work but do find the artwork that grabs me post-1950 or so at somewhere like MOMA pretty thin. On the other hand, I can also live without yet another Renaissance Madonna--however technically proficient it may be.
    - entee 11y ago
      Precisely. I think he also ignores that as far back as Leonardo, artists intended to push limits, paint new subjects and invent new techniques. Take the methods of the old, sure, but try to take them somewhere new. Surely modern subjects and concerns can be described using traditional techniques? Wouldn't that be interesting?
    - douche 11y ago
      Why couldn't we have technically impressive art of modern subjects? I would agree that I've seen enough Christs and Madonnas and Zeus's (what the heck is the plural of Zeus?) and other traditional themes. I'm a philistine, I suppose, but I used to get military history magazines, back when magazines were a thing, and one of my favorite parts were the ads for prints of beautiful paintings of P38s and Mustangs dogfighting, panzers and T-34s squaring off at Kursk, Picket's Charge, and U-Boats running on the surface in a stormy sea. Two of my favorite paintings that I have seen in an actual art museum are "In the Troops' Quarters outside Paris"[1] and "Eisenwalzwerk"[2], both of which would fail the 1870 cutoff... [1] https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/in-the-troops-quarters-outside-paris/sgHs0ePrEKaoNQ?hl=en https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/in-the... [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adolph_Menzel_-_Eisenwalzwerk_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adolph_Menzel_-_Eise...
      - ghaff 11y ago
        I assume by "technically impressive," you mean in classical European style. And, I suppose the answer is that you're probably not going to be regarded as a leading painter if you follow that path. I'm not saying I agree, but scenes from Middle East conflicts in a classical style is probably not the way to get gallery exhibits. Another difference is that we have photographs today and those have probably reduced the interest in a lot of realist paintings or illustrations. [Edit: I'd just add that painters don't generally exist outside of a market--which comes back to my comment about gallery exhibits. There probably isn't a big market for large-format expensive oil paintings of modern warfare.]
        11y ago

by entee 11y ago

danieltillett 11y ago

Leaving aside artistic merit, a lot of modern art is poorly constructed out of unstable materials. We may not have much of todays modern art in 50 years purely because the artists don’t know how (or don’t want) to make something that will last.

entee 11y ago
True, not to mention performance art which by definition is ephemeral. I wish there was some middle ground between the avant-guarde that Collins decries and some of the more recent ideas in art. I think he's not correct in wholesale rejection of everything post-1870. That throws out even semi-representational work like impressionism, fauvism, and surrealism just to name a few.
- ghaff 11y ago
  >I think he's not correct in wholesale rejection of everything post-1870. It comes down to taste, of course, but I take strong exception to the post-1870 cutoff. I actually like a lot of Pollock's work but do find the artwork that grabs me post-1950 or so at somewhere like MOMA pretty thin. On the other hand, I can also live without yet another Renaissance Madonna--however technically proficient it may be.
  - entee 11y ago
    Precisely. I think he also ignores that as far back as Leonardo, artists intended to push limits, paint new subjects and invent new techniques. Take the methods of the old, sure, but try to take them somewhere new. Surely modern subjects and concerns can be described using traditional techniques? Wouldn't that be interesting?
  - douche 11y ago
    Why couldn't we have technically impressive art of modern subjects? I would agree that I've seen enough Christs and Madonnas and Zeus's (what the heck is the plural of Zeus?) and other traditional themes. I'm a philistine, I suppose, but I used to get military history magazines, back when magazines were a thing, and one of my favorite parts were the ads for prints of beautiful paintings of P38s and Mustangs dogfighting, panzers and T-34s squaring off at Kursk, Picket's Charge, and U-Boats running on the surface in a stormy sea. Two of my favorite paintings that I have seen in an actual art museum are "In the Troops' Quarters outside Paris"[1] and "Eisenwalzwerk"[2], both of which would fail the 1870 cutoff... [1] https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/in-the-troops-quarters-outside-paris/sgHs0ePrEKaoNQ?hl=en https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/in-the... [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adolph_Menzel_-_Eisenwalzwerk_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adolph_Menzel_-_Eise...
    - ghaff 11y ago
      I assume by "technically impressive," you mean in classical European style. And, I suppose the answer is that you're probably not going to be regarded as a leading painter if you follow that path. I'm not saying I agree, but scenes from Middle East conflicts in a classical style is probably not the way to get gallery exhibits. Another difference is that we have photographs today and those have probably reduced the interest in a lot of realist paintings or illustrations. [Edit: I'd just add that painters don't generally exist outside of a market--which comes back to my comment about gallery exhibits. There probably isn't a big market for large-format expensive oil paintings of modern warfare.]
      - 11y ago