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That's how I felt about the Rothko color wash paintings. Not gonna say the prestige around them (aka, the dollar valuations that contribute to the hype surroun

That's how I felt about the Rothko color wash paintings. Not gonna say the prestige around them (aka, the dollar valuations that contribute to the hype surrounding those works) didn't influence me. I'm sure it does on some level (but other hyped-up works of art don't really do it for me, like stuff that Koons & Damien Hirst make). But seeing Rothko's paintings in a huge room, as a series, is very imposing, ominous, and for lack of better word, cool. Felt like a sensory immersion experience that taps into other parts of you that you didn't expect, not unlike looking at a vast beautiful landscape. If you only see it as a jpeg/ png that's like, 4-6" on your monitor, or as a 8" x 11" print in a coffee table book, it'll pale in comparison. Even if the discrepancy sounds utterly obvious, the in-situ experience is so vastly different, that even if it doesn't hit you like it does for others (i.e., me), it's still worth it to go see it as is, just to see how you'll respond to it or not.

thanatos519 4y ago
I felt that way about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Fire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Fire
- ethbr0 4y ago
  +1 for Guernica It's 11.5ft (3.5m) tall by 25.5ft (7.75m) wide. When you're standing in front of it, and it fills your entire vision, the horror comes through in a way that a postage stamp sized picture cannot trigger. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(Picasso) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(Picasso)
  - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
    Totally agree with you, but not sure the comparison is apt. When I look at Guernica on my phone, I think "Wow, that's cool, I bet it would be so imposing at full size." When I look at parent's link to Voice of Fire, I think, "Am I getting punked?" Point being that the small version makes me think "this is dumb", but I can appreciate that the scale of the original leaves a totally different impression.
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      I can't speak to Voice of Fire, as I've never seen it in person, but the reaction seems rooted in whether people value color equally to shape. I.e. "The shapes in the piece are simple, therefore the piece is simple." Edit insert: I dated an artist for a while who did a lot of color theory work, and IMHO the choosing of precise colors (especially over large areas) is underappreciated as a stimulus for ultimate experience. It's difficult to say from white balance on photos, but from memory Guernica isn't simply white, gray, and black. It's an ugly, uncomfortably hued, just barely noticable off-pure color palette. https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/8562495a.jpg https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/8562495a.... Voice of Fire is likely a much more extreme example, but my experience with Guernica was not that it was more... but that it was fundamentally different than reproduction in miniature.
      - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
        Thanks, that makes a lot of sense, I appreciate the explanation.
      - morelisp 4y ago
        Today's ease of access to a color gamut exceeding any pre-~1940 artist's wildest dreams, at high detail and on demand, is hard to overstate. I think people can still understand vaguely that something like vantablack or color-shift or things outside some gamut are "different" because they can't appear on a screen at all, but overall most people think "oh yes, I've seed red, I've seen blue, that's not art per se." But even though a screen is capable of reproduction of the basic frequencies of something like a "Rothko blue", actually seeing Rothko blue in real life - at that scale, with that texture, etc. - is a completely different experience. We think we can anticipate the experience by screen, but we are totally wrong. And the idea that something like cochineal's mere use to make "rich red" exist could be a artistic revolution is simply too foreign for us to sit with.
    - innocentoldguy 4y ago
      Having seen Voice of Fire in person, I thought, “this is dumb,” only bigger.
  - Balgair 4y ago
    These are some of the rare instances where I think VR may be actually useful. You're still not 'there' but you're a lot closer than with a crummy iphone
reassembled 4y ago
One artist whose work you really must see in person is James Turrell. His work is to construct massive and immersive “light installations”, where the play of colored light is the art piece. I saw an installation of his in San Francisco in the early 2000s and it was not unlike entering a sort of sensory deprivation tank, except instead of being enveloped by darkness you’re enveloped by different frequencies of color spectra.

thanatos519 4y ago

I felt that way about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Fire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Fire

ethbr0 4y ago
+1 for Guernica It's 11.5ft (3.5m) tall by 25.5ft (7.75m) wide. When you're standing in front of it, and it fills your entire vision, the horror comes through in a way that a postage stamp sized picture cannot trigger. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(Picasso) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(Picasso)
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  Totally agree with you, but not sure the comparison is apt. When I look at Guernica on my phone, I think "Wow, that's cool, I bet it would be so imposing at full size." When I look at parent's link to Voice of Fire, I think, "Am I getting punked?" Point being that the small version makes me think "this is dumb", but I can appreciate that the scale of the original leaves a totally different impression.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    I can't speak to Voice of Fire, as I've never seen it in person, but the reaction seems rooted in whether people value color equally to shape. I.e. "The shapes in the piece are simple, therefore the piece is simple." Edit insert: I dated an artist for a while who did a lot of color theory work, and IMHO the choosing of precise colors (especially over large areas) is underappreciated as a stimulus for ultimate experience. It's difficult to say from white balance on photos, but from memory Guernica isn't simply white, gray, and black. It's an ugly, uncomfortably hued, just barely noticable off-pure color palette. https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/8562495a.jpg https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/8562495a.... Voice of Fire is likely a much more extreme example, but my experience with Guernica was not that it was more... but that it was fundamentally different than reproduction in miniature.
    - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
      Thanks, that makes a lot of sense, I appreciate the explanation.
    - morelisp 4y ago
      Today's ease of access to a color gamut exceeding any pre-~1940 artist's wildest dreams, at high detail and on demand, is hard to overstate. I think people can still understand vaguely that something like vantablack or color-shift or things outside some gamut are "different" because they can't appear on a screen at all, but overall most people think "oh yes, I've seed red, I've seen blue, that's not art per se." But even though a screen is capable of reproduction of the basic frequencies of something like a "Rothko blue", actually seeing Rothko blue in real life - at that scale, with that texture, etc. - is a completely different experience. We think we can anticipate the experience by screen, but we are totally wrong. And the idea that something like cochineal's mere use to make "rich red" exist could be a artistic revolution is simply too foreign for us to sit with.
  - innocentoldguy 4y ago
    Having seen Voice of Fire in person, I thought, “this is dumb,” only bigger.
- Balgair 4y ago
  These are some of the rare instances where I think VR may be actually useful. You're still not 'there' but you're a lot closer than with a crummy iphone

reassembled 4y ago

One artist whose work you really must see in person is James Turrell. His work is to construct massive and immersive “light installations”, where the play of colored light is the art piece. I saw an installation of his in San Francisco in the early 2000s and it was not unlike entering a sort of sensory deprivation tank, except instead of being enveloped by darkness you’re enveloped by different frequencies of color spectra.