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I think the question why contemporary music intimidates or infuriates people could be expanded to art as well. As someone who studied art and film I found that
by atoav 3y ago
I think the question why contemporary music intimidates or infuriates people could be expanded to art as well.
As someone who studied art and film I found that even extremely powerful experimental works of music, art or film will have critics like these. Don't get me wrong: One doesn't has to like every piece of art. But even without liking it one could still respect the expression, the craft, the energy and/or the thought contained within a work. There is a lot of great art that I don't like.
The problem many people have with these modern things is that they think of art as something one can "parse" into a specific intended meaning. So once you encounter unparseable art, chances are you will feel stupid. Or worse, you feel the artwork "calls" you stupid.
But a lot of art simply is, while the intention is completely secondary. Nobody would look at a nice sunset and be upset at the fact that it doesn't have a clear meaning behind it. This lack of meaning is very easy to ignore with art which you think is nice (e.g. a painting of said sunset). For more art-headed people the same painting of a sunset would be boring, or even kitsch — what does the painting show, that I couldn't see better in real and nature? Then I'd rather see something completely unseen, a new painting technique, a motive I have never thought about etc.
- nonameiguess 3y agoYou know, ten years into marriage here, my wife has really turned me onto David Lynch. I hadn't paid much attention to his work before meeting her. I at least saw the most popular films one day and vaguely felt like I didn't get them, but there was nothing there I'd identify as bad filmmaking or anything. It just seemed like it was trying to say something and I wasn't getting it. I no longer feel that way at all. I don't know what flipped. It may have been learning that Lynch primarily considers himself a painter and he also does a lot of sculpture. He just makes movies and television shows because those are better at paying the bills. But it seemed pretty obvious after comparing the differences between all of the extended universe novelization material Mark Frost produced related to Twin Peaks with David Lynch's answers when asked if any of that is canon when he just says he doesn't care and doesn't even know what the extra content is. There is no hidden meaning I was failing to get. Lynch isn't trying to say anything at all. Was Dale Cooper literally living in a dream the whole time? It doesn't matter. He's just a painter but film happens to be his medium. He's creating impressions, in a series sufficiently coherent from one to the next that it can be considered a story, but it's not like reading Robert Jordan or something. There is no vast encyclopedia of notes and in-universe history where what was really happening the whole time is explained. It's just impressionism on film. At some point, I became okay with that and stopped falling into the Reddit fan-theory holes with everything I watch. It became okay to just appreciate the quality of the images and acting performances and realize this is fiction. It doesn't have to be constrained by the logical causal physics of reality. It can tell stories with dream logic even if the point of that isn't to say you're literally watching the dreams of another person who inhabits some physically real world that you aren't shown.
- atoav 3y agoThis is it. Why are there three birds (crows?) above that field in Van Gogh's painting? The answer is: who cares — they bring something to the painting, and no explaination would greatly change that. Maybe a definite explaination would even hurt the mystery and thus the reception. The value of some art lies in what it means to you, the mental doors it opens or the emotions it tingles. All of this can be so subjective that any explaination is ultimately without any real value. Sure it is interesting to know if Van Gogh used those birds elsewhere, or what they might represent for himself, with his moving biography. But when I am looking at that picture, all of that is not important.
- carlosjobim 3y ago> The problem many people have with these modern things is that they think of art as something one can "parse" into a specific intended meaning. No, I think that is a prejudice of people who think they are better at appreciating art than others. Normal people like abstract art, experimental music, and other stuff that is different and open for interpretation – as long as it's good. But they don't like subpar productions made by talentless people, just because these people have gone through all the superficial rites of becoming "artists" and have a community of group-narcissists to feed on.
- vonjuice 3y agois it a prejudice when a very common "critique" is "I didn't get it"? A lot of people want something concrete to get. They became used to a very narrow set of structures and expectations. They think they getting it or not makes the work good or bad.
- carlosjobim 3y ago"I didn't get it" is a polite way to say "I don't like it". Every time.