When the Mona Lisa was stolen from the louvre museum in paris in 1911

  • Thread starter wolram
  • Start date
In summary: In my opinion, the arts went downhill when artists started scoffing the idea that art should be pleasurable to the senses, and mistakenly started believing that, instead, the task of art was to convey the deepest philosophical "truths" about mankind.In summary, the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris in 1911, and was not recovered for two years. In 1961, Henri Matisse's painting Le Bateau was hung upside down at the New York Museum of Modern Art for 46 days before anyone noticed. A painter who has the feel for breasts and buttocks is saved (Renoir). It takes 570 gallons of paint to cover the White House. In my opinion, the arts went downhill when
  • #36
edited..what I had to say shouldn't be posted under something that disturbing
 
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  • #37
TRCSF said:
Alright, I thought by saying "art has to be pleasurably to the sense" you were saying something akin to "movies have to have happy endings."

I'm still not getting what you mean by "references." All art in a sense "refers" to work that came before it.

I disagree that it should appeal to everybody. There have always been philistines who cannot appreciate art. There always will be.
Okay, "practically" anyone then..:wink:
Did you see my edit, BTW?
It answers a bit on one type of references I was talking about (in this case, that knowledge of biographical details of an artist should not be essential for an appreciation of the artwork).

Another type of reference will be if the artwork really is only a commentary on two different traditions in art, say two schools, and unless you know about the two schools, you wouldn't get anything out of the artwork.
 
  • #38
wolram said:
What do people see in modern art? if a painting can be hung upside down
and no one notices, how can it have meaning?
A good, balanced painting should work even if it's upside down, including classical paintings. Witness: the Sistine Chapel. There is nowhere you can stand where all the figures are right side up, yet the ones that are upside down from your inertial frame, don't unbalance or disturb the ceiling as a whole. You ought to be able to hang any painting upside down and, regarding it as an abstract, find it is all balanced in terms of line, form, rhythm and color.

A good abstract painting, being non-figurative, doesn't lose it's integrity for looking as good upside down as right side up, rather, this proves it's integrity. Proves it, that is, if it actually does work in the accepted "right-side-up" position. A different abstract work will look equally bad no matter which way you hang it.
 
  • #39
loseyourname said:
Well, I'll have to disagree with you on that. This is an ugly image of war:

napalm_victim_400_bg.jpg

Yes, that is also an ugly image of war and was exactly the sort of thing Picasso was conveying.
 
  • #40
arildno said:
Okay, "practically" anyone then..:wink:
Did you see my edit, BTW?
It answers a bit on one type of references I was talking about (in this case, that knowledge of biographical details of an artist should not be essential for an appreciation of the artwork).

Another type of reference will be if the artwork really is only a commentary on two different traditions in art, say two schools, and unless you know about the two schools, you wouldn't get anything out of the artwork.

Could you give an example?
 
  • #41
TRCSF said:
Yes, that is also an ugly image of war and was exactly the sort of thing Picasso was conveying.

Sure, but Picasso gave an eye to composition and depth, negative space and balance, making his work more aesthetically appealing. That is the difference between art and documentation.
 
  • #42
TRCSF said:
Could you give an example?
I don't bother to remember stuff I don't care for.
But, you can find plenty of modern composers who with their pling-plongs reputedly makes an "ironic comment" to this or that previous composer.
Read a typical art review column to find explicit statements of why this or that piece of art is great because it combines or comments on some other, totally obscure artworks.:blah-blah.
 
  • #43
Guernica is only about Guernica because Picasso said so. If we came upon the painting without that knowledge all we find is the same unmistakable Picasso composition of line, form, rhythm and color that he used in all his paintings done in that style. He may jut as well have claimed that any of his cubist portraits depicted war-scarred people, or mentally ill people, or whatever. His claims about what they depict and how they are depicted are pretty much confabulation. His art works because he really knew how to paint an interesting line, how to juxtapose colors, and how to compose a visual field.
 
  • #44
loseyourname said:
Sure, but Picasso gave an eye to composition and depth, negative space and balance, making his work more aesthetically appealing. That is the difference between art and documentation.

I think we're using two different definitions of "beautiful". You're using it as "brilliantly, wonderfully done piece of art" and I'll agree Guernica is. I'm using "beautiful" as in eye candy. A buxom blonde with a basketful of bigeyed puppies going over a scenic waterfall.

There's no shortage at all of laypersons who find absolutely nothing aesthetically appealing about Geurnica and I doubt Picasso was ever intending to "pleasure their senses."
 
  • #45
Take the following example of the worthless outpourings of today's so-called artists:
modernart2.jpg
 
  • #46
TRCSF said:
I think we're using two different definitions of "beautiful". You're using it as "brilliantly, wonderfully done piece of art" and I'll agree Guernica is. I'm using "beautiful" as in eye candy.
But that is PRECISELY what's wrong with so-called modern art theory!
A mere twisting of words.

Mozart's music is beautiful, but it is not ear-candy (oops, BAD metaphor.. :redface:).
 
  • #47
I just can't see why anyone would ever want to look at or otherwise sensually experience something that didn't appeal to their senses. There are kinds of appeal more sophisticated than eye candy, but I don't think that makes them any less beautiful. When something is just flat-out ugly, the natural reaction is to not want to look at it (except maybe out of morbid curiosity). Why would one create a work of visual art that causes the viewer to not want to look at it? The idea is to draw people in, and that is only done by appealing to the senses. I am definitely of the opinion that Picasso, and just about every other artist that has ever lived, was very much attempting to draw people in, by appealing to their senses, with every painting and drawing he ever composed.

Just to note, I don't see what's beautiful about a buxom blonde with a basketful of puppies. That's more comical than anything else. To be considered beautiful, shouldn't something at least be interesting to look at?

By the way, this should be in value theory. That forum never sees any action.
 
  • #48
Yeah, you're right, loseyourname:
I've never found any interest in watching buxom women..
 
  • #49
"Real art" to me is the ability to draw or paint something recognizable. That requires skill to do well. The ability to paint or draw a face and make it look alive is "real art". Anything else, to me, are just "designs".
 
  • #50
arildno said:
Take the following example of the worthless outpourings of today's so-called artists:
I'm not sure at all what point you're making, but I like that thing you posted. It has a lot of energy and variety.
 
  • #51
Evo said:
"Real art" to me is the ability to draw or paint something recognizable. That requires skill to do well. The ability to paint or draw a face and make it look alive is "real art". Anything else, to me, are just "designs".


Nah, any dingus can go to some technical school and learn how to paint a pretty picture. That's not art.
 
  • #52
zoobyshoe said:
I'm not sure at all what point you're making, but I like that thing you posted. It has a lot of energy and variety.
Just children's scribble, that's all there is to it.
 
  • #53
loseyourname said:
I just can't see why anyone would ever want to look at or otherwise sensually experience something that didn't appeal to their senses. There are kinds of appeal more sophisticated than eye candy, but I don't think that makes them any less beautiful. When something is just flat-out ugly, the natural reaction is to not want to look at it (except maybe out of morbid curiosity). Why would one create a work of visual art that causes the viewer to not want to look at it?
I believe the Dada movement was responsible for this unashamed, open, perversion of art. While some movements explored new, non-classical ways of finding things of beauty and interest, the Dada-ists and their descendents were actively anti-art; essentially subversives.

This trend was taken up by the "conceptual" artists of the 1970's whose art was not meant to be of any sensual interest in and of itself, but to suggest "concepts" to the viewer, some of which were quite disturbing, and of questionable merit. Chris Burden was the main perpetrator here. He did a piece called Breathing Water, for example, a performance piece, in which he stuck his face into a basin of water and inhaled as much of it into his lungs as he could stand. The point was to plant the concept "breathing water" in the mind of the audience. Don't ask me why that was of any importance, but this movement was all the rage at the time and serious art critics disected and studied it as if it were VERY important.
 
  • #54
arildno said:
Just children's scribble, that's all there is to it.
Actually, it's better than the usual children's scribble. I don't know if you happened to catch the works of the departed Bicycle Tree but the thing you posted is genius by comparison.
 
  • #55
zoobyshoe said:
Actually, it's better than the usual children's scribble.
Tell that to the child's Mom&Dad..:wink:
 
  • #56
This is presumably art as well:
sculpt372.jpg
 
  • #57
TRCSF said:
Nah, any dingus can go to some technical school and learn how to paint a pretty picture.
This is true, but the stuff that any dingus produces upon graduation is recognizably trite and uncreative.

Technical expertise empowers many artists, just as it does musicians.

Barbara Edwards (Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain) says that "abstract" artists come to her all the time wanting to learn to draw realistically, and that some have confessed the reason they never did it (realism) before was that they couldn't.

Some artists content themselves with abstract art because they can't discipline themselves to learn realstic art, not even by pushing themselves to get into a technical school.
 
  • #58
arildno said:
This is presumably art as well:
The "child's scribble" is much much better than the big yellow intrusive thing.
 
  • #59
TRCSF said:
Nah, any dingus can go to some technical school and learn how to paint a pretty picture. That's not art.
They might learn to draw something recognizable, but it won't look alive, that takes talent. You can't "learn" talent, you learn technique. Technique without talent = crap.
 
  • #60
zoobyshoe said:
This is true, but the stuff that any dingus produces upon graduation is recognizably trite and uncreative.

Technical expertise empowers many artists, just as it does musicians.

Barbara Edwards (Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain) says that "abstract" artists come to her all the time wanting to learn to draw realistically, and that some have confessed the reason they never did it (realism) before was that they couldn't.

Some artists content themselves with abstract art because they can't discipline themselves to learn realstic art, not even by pushing themselves to get into a technical school.
So very true.
Picasso possessed the ability to draw in a classical manner to the fullest extent; so many after him have lacked the intellectual discipline&rigour needed to do just that, and hence, fail to produce good art.
Consistent with what I said earlier, you don't get to be an artist with only woozy ideas floating about in your head; you must discipline yourself to learn the tools of the trade if you are to grow into a true artist.
 
  • #62
arildno said:
Consistent with what I said earlier, you don't get to be an artist with only woozy ideas floating about in your head; you must discipline yourself to learn the tools of the trade if you are to grow into a true artist.
Yes, expressing your ideas articulately in any medium takes discipline and rigor. Having that, then an artists might fly into spontaneous creativity.
 
  • #63
zoobyshoe said:
Yes, expressing your ideas articulately in any medium takes discipline and rigor. Having that, then an artists might fly into spontaneous creativity.
As can a mathematician, or a clever experimental biologist.
It's about training up your muscles before you can fly, I guess.
 
  • #64
Mr wolram said:
When the Mona Lisa was stolen from the louvre museum in paris in 1911, and

Moan Lisa?

Damn! My dyslexia is showing up. :blushing:
 
  • #65
Evo said:
"Real art" to me is the ability to draw or paint something recognizable. That requires skill to do well. The ability to paint or draw a face and make it look alive is "real art". Anything else, to me, are just "designs".

Seconded, modern art can be all most any thing, and need no skill at all, just
a famous name will sell it, to me Lowry is the limit.
 
  • #66
wolram said:
Seconded, modern art can be all most any thing, and need no skill at all, just
a famous name will sell it, to me Lowry is the limit.

Hard to respond right now, wearing a police hat as I am, incidentally don't know if its any harder than wearing face paint or being drenched midst water fight as usual, but just seems more distracting. I've enjoyed reading everyones views so much.
I can't speak for other painters, but for me, coming from an artistic family, I've been learning about art all my life. I've been schooled in figurative and nonfigurative painting. For me figurative comes naturally and its beauty is rewarding. Like therapy, I really enjoy painting like that. It does seem a bit selfish and wasteful. I think more abstracted art allows more room to explore more concepts, and is a greater challange that feels more satisfying in the end.
As for the cult of fame, everyone who is good at selling themselves will probably achieve greater acclaim than they neccessarly warrant, and perhaps it is easier to get away with this in art, than in more precise fields.
I could go on, and on, and on, but I have to arrest some bad guys now.
 
  • #67
fi said:
Hard to respond right now, wearing a police hat as I am, incidentally don't know if its any harder than wearing face paint or being drenched midst water fight as usual, but just seems more distracting. I've enjoyed reading everyones views so much.
I can't speak for other painters, but for me, coming from an artistic family, I've been learning about art all my life. I've been schooled in figurative and nonfigurative painting. For me figurative comes naturally and its beauty is rewarding. Like therapy, I really enjoy painting like that. It does seem a bit selfish and wasteful. I think more abstracted art allows more room to explore more concepts, and is a greater challange that feels more satisfying in the end.
As for the cult of fame, everyone who is good at selling themselves will probably achieve greater acclaim than they neccessarly warrant, and perhaps it is easier to get away with this in art, than in more precise fields.
I could go on, and on, and on, but I have to arrest some bad guys now
.

Some modern, abstract, art can be pleasing to look at, but i could fill this
thread with pictures of "so called modern art", that an infant could do in
two minutes, i really think some of these artists play on their name.
Watch out bad guys.
 
  • #68
fi said:
I think more abstracted art allows more room to explore more concepts, and is a greater challange that feels more satisfying in the end.
What sort of thing falls under the heading of a "concept" for you?
 
  • #69
Did I use the term incorrectly? I meant that although you can explore further abstracted ideas when confined by very natural representation, through things like the media and metaphor, that there is more freedom to do this without being so limited.
 

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