Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Wednesday, April 6. 2011

Even Art Students Find It Hard To Tell The Difference

In a blind test of which is which, even art students could only choose the most famous works of the most famous modern artists 62% of the time compared to the squiggles of children, chimpanzees and elephants.



...nobody ever had to do an experiment to find out whether people can tell the difference between a painting by a monkey and a painting by Monet. Nobody ever looked at a Rembrandt and wondered if, just perhaps, some merry prankster had given a pack of paints to a pachyderm and told it to go to town.

Posted by Bruce Kesler at 09:15 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

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Mmmm, Bierstadt. Just mentioning the name puts me in a happy haze of reflection.
#1 Randy Rager (Link) on 2011-04-06 10:33 (Reply)
I wonder how much of what is called "modern art" is funded by the government...
#2 mudbug on 2011-04-06 11:40 (Reply)
That is what always bugged me about "Art Appreciation" classes. Turns out I had no appreciation for most of the artwork. It seemed to me that the only thing that made it art was it was painted by some dead guy a long time ago.

I like artwork, do not get me wrong. I can even appreciate most modern art, though I would not pay those fortunes that some city governments and civic organizations seem to think they are worth. I can even see, if I squint in a certain way, (and have have sufficient alcohol), and have the brochure with me, just what the artist was trying to represent in his random collection of bits stuck together. Sometimes. Maybe. In illucid moments.

So I have learned to appreciate art, even those forms that I find suspicious (such as "performance art"). I just do not think the government should be taking my money to support it.
#3 JoeC on 2011-04-06 16:58 (Reply)

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