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Decades ago the art world traded skill (lifetime of practice, apprenticeship, in relative poverty) in the reproduction of realistic forms on canvas and in marbl

Decades ago the art world traded skill (lifetime of practice, apprenticeship, in relative poverty) in the reproduction of realistic forms on canvas and in marble, for novelty (Piss Christ, Duchamp’s Urinal, Basquiat’s graffiti). DALL-E will just precipitate the next stage I think. Edited for typo.

karpierz 4y ago
This is the same argument that would conclude that Picasso was a more skilled artist at 15: https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/1-picasso-self-portrait.jpg https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/1-pica... Than at 35: https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/6-picasso-self-portrait.jpg https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/6-pica... And that he was an even worse artist at 90: https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/13-picasso-self-portrait.jpg https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/13-pic...
- nickdothutton 4y ago
  I make no judgement as to the validity or quality of the art, either classical or modern. I think art is much too personal a thing to speak of in quite that way. Only that the art world has decided to make the trade I speak of. Someone who can produce photo realism today, will not set the art world on fire. Neither will someone who takes 6 years to produce a single large anatomically precise sculpture after 25 years training. However if you can inject novelty (I recently read of a statue made of the artists own congealed blood, and another made of their ear wax) then you have the attention of the patron.
- HKH2 4y ago
  I would say that he produced better art, rather than that he was more skilled, because he could've produced work below his level of skill.
  - karpierz 4y ago
    You seem to be describing "technical skill", like "can he move his pencil in a straight line". Essentially, can he draw the things he intends to draw on the paper? I'm talking about "artistic skill", which is the ability to effectively put ideas or emotions into a work of art. An analogy which might explain my thinking: A software engineer who writes a 1,000 line program in a month is producing work beneath their "skill" because they could've written a 100,000 line program that does the same thing, in that same month. Typing is a technical skill for programmers, but I wouldn't say that typing skill makes you a better software engineer.
    - HKH2 4y ago
      I'm talking about the same skill you are. You (and many others) think that the third picture requires a lot of artistic skill. As far as I see, the third picture is a prototype with a lot of technical debt. I don't think we can meet on common terms because our definitions of art are different. I do not subscribe to the opinion that art is about challenging our thinking. Instead, I consider good art to be about immersion. You do not have to convince yourself to like it. You do not feel the need to like it ironically. Yes, you can get used to it and it loses some of it's power, but the greatest art is the art that you can keep looking at (or listening to etc.) without feeling the need to justify it. (I cannot remember which philosopher I borrowed that idea from.)
BeFlatXIII 4y ago
Photography killed the market for realistic forms on canvas being the pinnacle of achievement.
hk__2 4y ago
The art world has always been about novelty, but what was considered novelty centuries ago is now considered as "classic". There are countless examples of artists that didn’t get much recognition because what they did was too "modern" for the times they lived in (see Caravaggio for example). Most of the things you see in museums are notorious because they were extraordinarily novel for their time, not because they would be hard to reproduce.

karpierz 4y ago

This is the same argument that would conclude that Picasso was a more skilled artist at 15: https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/1-picasso-self-portrait.jpg https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/1-pica... Than at 35: https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/6-picasso-self-portrait.jpg https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/6-pica... And that he was an even worse artist at 90: https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/13-picasso-self-portrait.jpg https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/13-pic...

nickdothutton 4y ago
I make no judgement as to the validity or quality of the art, either classical or modern. I think art is much too personal a thing to speak of in quite that way. Only that the art world has decided to make the trade I speak of. Someone who can produce photo realism today, will not set the art world on fire. Neither will someone who takes 6 years to produce a single large anatomically precise sculpture after 25 years training. However if you can inject novelty (I recently read of a statue made of the artists own congealed blood, and another made of their ear wax) then you have the attention of the patron.
HKH2 4y ago
I would say that he produced better art, rather than that he was more skilled, because he could've produced work below his level of skill.
- karpierz 4y ago
  You seem to be describing "technical skill", like "can he move his pencil in a straight line". Essentially, can he draw the things he intends to draw on the paper? I'm talking about "artistic skill", which is the ability to effectively put ideas or emotions into a work of art. An analogy which might explain my thinking: A software engineer who writes a 1,000 line program in a month is producing work beneath their "skill" because they could've written a 100,000 line program that does the same thing, in that same month. Typing is a technical skill for programmers, but I wouldn't say that typing skill makes you a better software engineer.
  - HKH2 4y ago
    I'm talking about the same skill you are. You (and many others) think that the third picture requires a lot of artistic skill. As far as I see, the third picture is a prototype with a lot of technical debt. I don't think we can meet on common terms because our definitions of art are different. I do not subscribe to the opinion that art is about challenging our thinking. Instead, I consider good art to be about immersion. You do not have to convince yourself to like it. You do not feel the need to like it ironically. Yes, you can get used to it and it loses some of it's power, but the greatest art is the art that you can keep looking at (or listening to etc.) without feeling the need to justify it. (I cannot remember which philosopher I borrowed that idea from.)

BeFlatXIII 4y ago

Photography killed the market for realistic forms on canvas being the pinnacle of achievement.

hk__2 4y ago

The art world has always been about novelty, but what was considered novelty centuries ago is now considered as "classic". There are countless examples of artists that didn’t get much recognition because what they did was too "modern" for the times they lived in (see Caravaggio for example). Most of the things you see in museums are notorious because they were extraordinarily novel for their time, not because they would be hard to reproduce.