Art Appreciation

This is for all non-EC or peripheral-EC topics. We all know how much we love talking about 'The Man' but sometimes we have other interests.
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Otis Westinghouse
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Post by Otis Westinghouse »

noiseradio wrote:You have to admire that kind of naked hubris in an artist.
You also have to admire the thrust of his beard.
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
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Boy With A Problem
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Post by Boy With A Problem »

oily's Top 5 Arts:

Art Carney
Art Blakey
Art Shamsky
Art Garfunkel
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
I should have included Art Carney on my list - one of the greats.
Everyone just needs to fuckin’ relax. Smoke more weed, the world is ending.
invisible Pole
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Post by invisible Pole »

The Godfather, Part I
The Godfather, Part II
Beautiful South - Carry On Up The Charts
Elvis Costello - Tart
Elvis Costello - Party Girl
If you don't know what is wrong with me
Then you don't know what you've missed
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miss buenos aires
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Post by miss buenos aires »

Taking the rest of the discussion over here, I will concede that you can tell if you do like something if you like it on a computer screen, but you really can't dismiss it. Keep in mind that these paintings were never meant to be reproduced to 8 1/2 x 11, or brought down for you to check out. These are big paintings, for the most part, and they were hung above one's head, so what looks like poorly designed proportions from head on might look quite different when you see it how it was meant to be seen, with certain parts of the painting much closer to your face (and therefore bigger) than other parts. It's like saying, "Hans Holbein sucks, did you see that huge smudge at the bottom of his portrait of Henry VIII?" When you look at the painting in its original context, you see how the artist took advantage of the physicality of the viewing context to add a memento mori (the smudge becomes a skull if you look at it from the right angle). So maybe, just maybe, there are aspects of the artistic process in 16th-century Rome that aren't best judged on a computer screen.
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Otis Westinghouse
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Post by Otis Westinghouse »

This reminds me of when the Tate's Turner/Whistler/Monet show was on last year and the reviewed it on the telly, they were raving about Whistler's Nocturnes, and said you simply had to see them in the gallery to get the magic of them, a reproduction on your TV screen wouldn't do it. They then showed a couple of them and they looked fantastic, so I can only guess at the effect of being in a darkened room with them. Sadly, I never made it to the exhibition.

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From the Tate:

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There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
selfmademug

Post by selfmademug »

Otis Westinghouse wrote:the Tate's Turner/Whistler/Monet show was on last year
Lucky for me I *did* make that one-- phenomenal. One of the best exhibs I've ever seen, frankly. I'm a bit sick-to-death of Impressionism and this show really renewed Monet's brilliance for me. Seeing their respective but related takes on the Thames and the Houses of Parliament was a rationalist's dream come true, and the paintings themselves were a sensual feast. Can't beat that combination really!
Bambooneedle wrote:If I know someone paints people uncomfortably out of proportion for instance I can move on and enjoy something better.
I guess that rules out Botticelli...

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To say nothing of those medieval hacks like Duccio who clearly never looked at real human hands (and talk about cranking out paintings for the church!):

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And then there's that overrated Spaniard, Goya-- did he just paste that head on, or what?:

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We won't even get into El Greco and Picasso. :)
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Who Shot Sam?
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Post by Who Shot Sam? »

selfmademug wrote:And then there's that overrated Spaniard, Goya-- did he just paste that head on, or what?:
Oh I adore Goya. When I was living in Boston, the MFA had a Goya exhibition that included a large portion of his Disasters of War series. Dark dark stuff, but I love it...

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Last edited by Who Shot Sam? on Sat Dec 17, 2005 10:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by selfmademug »

Who Shot Sam? wrote: Oh I adore Goya.
Me too-- but I'm guessing you knew that! I missed that Goya show though... poo.
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El Vez
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Post by El Vez »

A personal fave although I can't really spend more than fifteen minutes pouring over the illustrations or I risk sleeping with the lights on.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/048623 ... e&n=283155
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mood swung
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Post by mood swung »

big fan of Coolidge, myself.

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and Chinook.

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Like me, the "g" is silent.
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Mike Boom
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Post by Mike Boom »

Hey Mood, bad art is a whole new ball game.

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echos myron like a siren
with endurance like the liberty bell
and he tells you of the dreamers
but he's cracked up like the road
and he'd like to lift us up, but we're a very heavy load
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mood swung
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Post by mood swung »

There's bad, and then there's terrifying-nightmare-inducing-panic-attacking-grinchilicious evil.
Like me, the "g" is silent.
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El Vez
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Post by El Vez »

Mike Boom wrote:Hey Mood, bad art is a whole new ball game.

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Carol Channing IS Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest II : I Said No Wire Hangers, Bitch!
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Who Shot Sam?
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Post by Who Shot Sam? »

For bad art, you can't do much better than this:

http://www.museumofbadart.org/

I love the acquisition details - "Acquired from trash in Boston"
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Mike Boom
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Post by Mike Boom »

Yeah, Ive long been a fan of the Museum of Bad Art, there are quite a few other great bad art sites as well, scattered around the web -

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echos myron like a siren
with endurance like the liberty bell
and he tells you of the dreamers
but he's cracked up like the road
and he'd like to lift us up, but we're a very heavy load
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Extreme Honey
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Post by Extreme Honey »

Does looking straight at an internationally-acclaimed piece of art bring the same emotions sparked by listening to, oh say, "The Wall" by Pink Floyd?

(No sarcasm intended here, it's just a question I've always wondered)
Preacher was a talkin' there's a sermon he gave,
He said every man's conscience is vile and depraved,
You cannot depend on it to be your guide
When it's you who must keep it satisfied
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Post by selfmademug »

Extreme Honey wrote:Does looking straight at an internationally-acclaimed piece of art bring the same emotions sparked by listening to, oh say, "The Wall" by Pink Floyd?
Lord I hope not. I think "The Wall" is utter crap. But in answer to your question of whether can art evoke the same level of emotion as music, my personal answer is 'almost'. I'm sure there are many for whom the answer is a resounding YES.
bobster
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Post by bobster »

"I don't know art, but I know what I'm supposed to like." -- Woody Allen.
http://www.forwardtoyesterday.com -- Where "hopelessly dated" is a compliment!
laughingcrow
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Post by laughingcrow »

Who Shot Sam? wrote:
selfmademug wrote:And then there's that overrated Spaniard, Goya-- did he just paste that head on, or what?:
Oh I adore Goya.
Did you see the Goya sketches altered in this very way by Jake and Dinos Chapman a few years back for their Insult To Injury exhibit for the Turner prize? Brilliant stuff.
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Tim(e)
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Post by Tim(e) »

bobster wrote:
miss buenos aires wrote:I've had a soft spot for Renoir ever since one of my friends in high school told me I looked like someone in one of his paintings...
Funny, someone once said the same thing to me. Well, it was Edward Munch, but otherwise, it was the same thing.
I'm a Munch man myself...
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Tim(e)
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Post by Tim(e) »

verena wrote:Oh not El Greco please, his paintings frighten me.
Apparently El Greco suffered from a form of astygmatism which was the reason his figures always appeared elongated.

Another artist who is not usually associated with brush and pen, but whose work in that medium really impressed me in a Tokyo exihibition about 15 years ago, is David Lynch.
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Otis Westinghouse
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Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Although that El Greco theory has also been discredited by scholars. Who knows, but for me he's one of the most powerful of all. El Entierro del Conde Orgaz is a lovely summary of existence as they saw it:

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Allegedly that is Domenicos Theotokopoulos (or something like that, his real name) looking straight at us, about 7 from left, just above hand. A lovely idea. It's in its own little chapel in Toledo, and is profoundly moving to see. I have a reproduction above my bed, just in case I die in my sleep.
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
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noiseradio
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Post by noiseradio »

Music is more able to evoke emotion from me than visual art, but I think that's only to do with me. I'm audio-oriented. But sometimes, I am utterly overwhelmed by the visual. Like with this astounding work by Diego Rivera:

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"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
--William Shakespeare
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miss buenos aires
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Post by miss buenos aires »

Is that the one that was commissioned for Rockefeller Center?
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noiseradio
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Post by noiseradio »

Yep. Well, actually it's the remake of the one commissioned for Rockefeller Center, since the one commissioned was jackhammered on Rockefeller's orders. There aren't any color photographs of the original that show the whole thing (which was unfinished at the time of its untimely demise). There are a few color snaps of sections of it, and there's a B&W photo of it very near completion. And from what we can piece together, the original would have been even more spectacular (it would have been bigger as well). It's called Man at the Crossroads.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
--William Shakespeare
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