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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Saturday, February 15. 2020

Does "art" exist?


"Fine art," folk art, cave art, graphic design, indusrtial design, religious art, illustration, artisanship, architecture, etc. 


A Treatise on the Nonexistence of Art, Pretty Nearly, Anyway (h/t, reader)



Art is mostly fraud perpetrated by narcissistic academic quacks on a public easily gulled. They should be prosecuted. This is as true of literature as of painting and sculpture. If modern sculpture were placed in a junkyard, art critics couldn’t find it. Most of what we are told are great works are great works only because we are told that they are.


Consider the Mona Lisa, for mysterious reasons regarded an epochal detonation of artistry. Why? She is an excessively round woman who looks as if she is about to spit. We have to be told that she was an astonishment and marvel. Otherwise we would rate her a a pretty fair effort for an art student somewhere in Nebraska...



Posted by The Barrister in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 17:53 | Comments (17) | Trackbacks (0)

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Exactly.

Art Carney Barkers, so to speak.
#1 guinspen on 2020-02-15 19:44 (Reply)
Context matters.
#2 Assistant Village Idiot on 2020-02-15 19:48 (Reply)
Radio actor and monologist, the late Jean Shepherd, once quoted an artist friend of his as having said, "Art is whatever you can get away with."
#3 Phil, Jr. on 2020-02-15 20:32 (Reply)
Try painting the Mona Lisa.
#4 Texan99 on 2020-02-16 08:06 (Reply)
Fred is pretty much a jerk.
If all he sees in Mona Lisa is a fat chick, he is also an idiot.

Yeah, we all know, when dealing with stuff that is not essential for life there will be a lot of fluff and flim flam, but lets not throw it all away as he seems to want.

Was it Herman Goering who said that when he heard the word culture, he took the safety off his pistol?
#4.1 pbird on 2020-02-16 12:13 (Reply)
We actually used Mondrian’s patterns for our kitchen counters. My wife loves them. The guy who did the counters thought we were crazy. He’s probably right. But, as I said, my wife loves them. So shut up. Thank the Lord she’s not a fan of Kandinsky.
#5 Dr. Jay on 2020-02-16 08:30 (Reply)
This was a particularly bad attempt at art criticism which was actually more of a criticism of art critics. I explain what is wrong with this kind of approach here:

https://themusicsalon.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-nonexistence-of-art.html
#6 Bryan (Link) on 2020-02-16 11:00 (Reply)
Yes, can't have 'Joe the Plumber' actually LIKE the look of a building, now, can we? Better we just insult the average Joe so 'we' can feel superior.

This treatise of Reed's was written in 2015 and is so very true, especially today.

I am of the opinion that NO government should spend taxpayer money on 'art'. OF ANY KIND. If a group of folks want a park full of headless junkheaps, they can fund it themselves AND buy the land to put it on.

Even in my little town we have fools yammering on and on about... the 'incandescent soul of the artist, brought Real', or some other drivel, about some publicly procured (MEANING: MY TAX MONEY!!!) 'art' dirtying up an otherwise nice little park.

Appreciation does not 'take time', it should never 'take time', it has been there for two years now and it is still a headless pile of heavily used air conditioner parts. Much better to get one of those car-part dinosaurs that sit outside of junk yards - at least there is a semblance of order and you know what you are looking at.

Bryan? I call B.S. You like the junk that passes for 'art'? Go buy it. Quit insisting everyone else worship your emperor, he is buck naked.
#7 TheCaptain on 2020-02-16 11:42 (Reply)
I forgot to add this apt quote from - I think - Heinlein:

"A publicly supported artist is nothing more than an incompetent whore".
#7.1 TheCaptain on 2020-02-16 11:47 (Reply)
I was never much into art until my 40s. I went to see an exhibit of Dutch masters. The way they captured light and recreated the images of the people opened my eyes. Now I love art. But it doesn't have to be famous. I saw a hotel put up drawings by grade school kids that had been taken to see the nutcrackers Suite. They used crayons. Raw talent poured off of the paper. I also like outsider art, where people take a welding torch to their old car or make paintings using dollar store brushes and coca-cola and mud.
Art helps you see. Music, painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, comedy,drama.we are surrounded by art.
yesterday I spent the morning watching Maris Jones. She used to make Vines before it closed. She has wonderful videos on music and comedy that hardly anyone watches. She is an artist. Youtube is full of art. Open your eyes.
#8 Robert Moffett (Link) on 2020-02-16 11:51 (Reply)
I remember a story about a mathematician experienced in pattern analysis was hired by an (un named*) museum to examine the spacial frequency distribution on some (un specified) paintings attributed to Jackson Pollock to try to determine which may have been fakes.

*non disclosure was in effect, so that's all we know.
#9 jay on 2020-02-16 12:32 (Reply)
I have never seen a more compelling discussion of the value of great art than Scruton's "Why Beauty Matters" It's an hour well spent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHw4MMEnmpc

(in English but subtitled in something else)

I saw an art gallery with a sign: 'Art should disturb'. No, no, no. Art should inspire. Art should teach. Art should uplift. Any trash can 'disturb'
#10 jay on 2020-02-16 12:37 (Reply)
Mondrian generator
http://www.stephen.com/mondrimat/
#11 Eb on 2020-02-16 13:42 (Reply)
In college I took a required English literature class. The professor was a middle aged women PhD who proclaimed that first day that studying Joseph Conrad was her life. You could hear the eyes roll and sense the stifled groan. By a stroke of luck the 4th day she had a family emergency and her PhD English Lit husband taught the class and did not have a stick firmly planted up his A$$ so the class was tolerable. How does this relate, you ask? The women professor was probably/undoubtedly clueless of her bizarre bias and ill considered life choices. BUT she was the expert the one to tell us all what great English lit was. It was her way or an F and you were considered an illiterate monkey. Only she knew what was good English lit. And that is how most art critics and experts come across and they are clueless to this. They actually believe that if you don't agree with their superior god given wisdom you are and ignorant red neck or worse (is there anything worse?).

Yes, the Mona Lisa is a fat ugly chick! There I said it! I have no appreciation of what passes for real art. I'm not elite, I fly coach on Spirit airlines. I drink wine from a box and stay at Motel 6.

Oh yeah; ditto for poetry.
#12 OneGuy on 2020-02-16 18:57 (Reply)
Never thought to see such out and proud philistinism on Maggie’s.
#13 Elizabeth Crain on 2020-02-16 21:02 (Reply)
Yes, I agree. San Francisco is covered in 'modern art' ;->

Now. Don't you feel superior?
#13.1 TheCaptain on 2020-02-18 16:21 (Reply)
“Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues, you can tell by the way she smiles”
#14 Linda s on 2020-02-19 15:32 (Reply)

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