Could someone help me out here?

Please cite examples and explainations.

9/18/2005 10:05:26 PM

Snewf has made some threads about this.

Dig on those to see where this will go.

here's a good one that was in the soap box
http://www.brentroad.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=251674

but really, understanding "abstract" art is pretty much akin to understanding any sort of "art"

an aural cousin would be something like "understanding jazz"

[Edited on September 18, 2005 at 10:14 PM. Reason : .]

9/18/2005 10:08:56 PM

Yah, I figured it might have been done before. Nothing new under the sun or the wolf web.

thanks for the link.

9/18/2005 10:28:37 PM

you gotta look through the picture

its a sailboat

9/18/2005 10:39:28 PM

they're gonna call the company Moland Springs????
thats a horrible name...

[Edited on September 19, 2005 at 1:32 AM. Reason : .]

9/19/2005 1:10:08 AM

Quote :

"In some occupations, the latitude for self-expression is greater. Survival -- making a living -- goes hand in hand with creative desire. I think its fair to say that some activities have more art IN them than others. Life is a series of MINUTE DECISIONS, some motivated by SURVIVAL, some NOT, and proportions do vary. "But to proclaim, as so many often do, that 'THAT'S NOT ART!' presumes that art is an EITHER/OR proposition. I don't think it is. Rare is the person in ANY occupation who expresses NOTHING... and rare is the artist who cares nothing for success, i.e, survival." But the IDEAL of the latter is alive in the hearts of many artists who may hope for success, but won't alter their work to obtain it. "The fine artist -- the PURE artist -- says to the world: "I didn't do this for money! i didn't do this to match the color of your couches! I didn't do this to get laid! I didn't do this for fame or power or greed or anything else! I did this for ART!" In other words: "My art has NO PRACTICAL VALUE WHATSOEVER!" "But it's important!" And sometimes it IS, though it might take a century or two for the rest of the world to find out!"

9/19/2005 1:11:25 AM

before you can pass judgement on something as "not art," you must first identify "what is art." look at jackson pollock. he's one of my favorite artists, yet most people think that he's a hack. it's not always about who can paint the prettiest picture, rather how that picture makes you feel or the expression of feeling that the artist is trying to get across.

"The public history of modern art is the story of conventional people not knowing what they are dealing with."
-Robert Motherwell

[Edited on September 19, 2005 at 8:57 AM. Reason : .]

9/19/2005 8:56:38 AM

gg bill bixby

9/19/2005 9:09:13 AM

decide what you kind of art you are dealing with --> music, film, visual...etc. i'd say most people find abstract paintings the easiest to sord of draw or get something from....its not always the painting itself that is the message, but the why/where in time, what kind of audience or question is the artist trying to make here....perhaps that has shed some light

9/19/2005 9:14:40 AM

I suppose I should narrow my question from how to understand abstract art (which includes cubists and possibly impressionists) to how to understand abstract expressionism. In particular, paintings by folks like Jackson Pollack.

So far, the best I can figure from what little I've read is that abstract art is about inspiring certain feelings in the viewer and for this to happen the viewer has to work at experiencing the painting just like the artist worked to create it.

My problem is understanding how I can participate with the artist. How do I know when I've sucessfully understood the artist's intent.

And before anyone says "it's like all relative, man" and "you're not suppose to understand it", then how do we judge an abstract painting to be a good abstract painting?

9/19/2005 9:38:07 AM

Art doesn't require education or an understanding of a given work's context, but they're nice supplements to our appreciation of that work.

I believe that "abstract art" is a misnomer. All art is founded on abstraction. Even when using the most recognizable elements, such as a movie featuring living people in familiar real-world settings, the work is still arranging those elements and building relationships between them that are neither obvious nor natural. For instance, you may recognize a picture on a movie screen as being Tobey Maguire in Manhattan, but it takes a heavy layer of abstraction to transform the actor to the character of Peter Parker and to transform the action from video of him walking around and talking to people to the action of a narrative. There's a much deeper involvement at work

And this isn't limited to works of fiction by any means, nor is it limited to narratives. Take a documentary, some hardcore cinéma vérité shit: You can't take it as nature due to the editing alone. The word art itself has its roots in the Latin ars, which comes from an even older root that means something like "to arrange" or "to construct." The fundamental difference between nature and art is that art is defined by humankind's involvement, arrangement, and manipulation—art is our reaction to and attempt to duplicate nature.

Of course, you could counter that by saying that you would need an understanding of the conventions of cinema to properly appreciate a movie, and you'd be right to a degree. How much of any movie would we understand if we didn't understand the concept of the flashback or the dream sequence or the voiceover? But those conventions come about for a reason, and that reason is that they are excellent ways to convey those ideas, intuitive enough that you don't need annotations or a supplementary text to work out what's going on.

But the movie in question wouldn't be diminished if you didn't understand those conventions, though your appreciation of the movie probably would be. And that's sort of where "abstract art" finds itself. The visual arts in general have a long and detailed history that has resulted in all sorts of conventions and devices that are constantly used and rarely explicated, but what's more is that it's almost always an intensely personal expression that we, the audience or spectators, will always be some distance from.

Perfect example: the still life. An artist takes some handy objects—a bowl of fruit, a lady's hat, a skull—then sets them on some kind of stand and paints them. The still life is basically an exercise of technique, practice at capturing textures and lighting, but even this pedestrian work is abstracted to some degree. If nothing else, there's something informing and influencing the artist's choice of objects to paint, even if he pulls them at random from a sack (because why did he put those objects in the sack in the first place, and why be random at all?). The artist's choice of media and style are major concerns as well, even if it's a traditional realistic still life. You see, a lot of abstraction is invested in a work during creation simply because the individual parts of a work are works themselves (though Snewf might argue with me there) and "connected" or bound to the larger work by still more abstractions, like the border of the canvas being the work's boundary.

The more I talk about this, the more convoluted it sounds, but it's very instinctual if you drop your hang-ups about understanding art. The true worth of art lies in its personal nature, its ability to convey something universal to all of us and something unique to you. There's no wrong way to interpret or understand it after all, even if that feels too easy or like a cop-out. Ultimately, you may not "know art," but you know what you like.

9/19/2005 9:58:34 AM

^ cliff notes:

Quote :

"drop your hang-ups about understanding art"

9/19/2005 10:03:00 AM

THX

9/19/2005 10:03:32 AM

here's the way I look at it:

when I paint, I don't look at a canvas and say "ok, this painting is going to be about war." instead, I look at the canvas, and I let my mood take me where I want to go. So while my technique stays pretty much the same, the overall feeling of each painting is so different and you kind of get a sense of what I was feeling and thus hopefully you will feel something similar as a viewer. not that you need to feel like I did, but instead of me TELLLING you what to feel and what the painting is about, I'm letting you the viewer experience a small bit of myself and thus hopefully spurring a reaction through the expression in the piece.

9/19/2005 10:16:13 AM

usually my engendered feelings are, "god what a stinking stupid hippy"

i hate overtly political art, but of course, this is just personal preference

[Edited on September 19, 2005 at 10:24 AM. Reason : s]

9/19/2005 10:19:27 AM

that's my point. I think it's stupid to tell people what they SHOULD feel from the art. let the viewer experience the art as a whole and thus make up their own mind.

9/19/2005 10:28:05 AM

well

i feel that anyone who didn't read my post and tries to contribute to this thread is a huge fag

9/19/2005 10:33:43 AM

why does he have to be big?

why can't he just be gay?

9/19/2005 10:44:38 AM

I took philosophy of art, and this is pretty much all we talked about for a whole semester.

9/19/2005 10:48:39 AM

was there a biscuit in the middle?

9/19/2005 10:49:24 AM

talking to me?

9/19/2005 10:51:43 AM

That's...that's pretty funny.

9/19/2005 10:52:20 AM

Thank you for the thoughtful post Frosh, but I'm not sure you answered my question. I agree that all art, to an extent, is an abstraction, but there are different degrees of abstraction. Let me narrow it down a bit. I can understand why some people think that a Thomas Cole painting is a "good" painting. He beautifully depicts recognizable natural scenes that inspire reflection on God and Nature. Even if you don't agree with his reverence for nature or his religous undertones, you can still appreciate his technique. What's more even the lay audience can understand this just by looking at the painting (just like in your movie analogy).

But how do you judge a Mark Rothko painting to be good (for a specific example)? I have a hard time trying to figure out what Rothko wanted to get across with his paintings. Rothko used to say that he wanted people to see the tragedy in his paintings. He said he wanted people to cry when they saw paintings. But, can I ask, where is the tragedy in this?



I'm having a hard time finding it. Do I lack the proper cultural background? To understand many of Cole's paintings you had to have a small knowledge of Christianity and Biblical Myths. Is there something I don't know that's keeping me from appreciating this painting?

[Edited on September 19, 2005 at 3:00 PM. Reason : Quick Article on Rothko: http://www.slate.com/id/2923/]

[Edited on September 19, 2005 at 3:02 PM. Reason : ``]

9/19/2005 2:59:25 PM

Without a heavy dose of inference, I can't get much out of that myself. My man might just be bullshitting. Art's also got a lot of that. :/

But...you know, who knows? It could be that our sensory organs just aren't as highly evolved as his.

9/19/2005 3:02:36 PM

I don't mind it, but there's a million just like it. rothko is awesome though.

[Edited on September 19, 2005 at 4:21 PM. Reason : .]

[Edited on September 19, 2005 at 4:22 PM. Reason : .]

[Edited on September 19, 2005 at 4:23 PM. Reason : .]

9/19/2005 4:21:26 PM

9/19/2005 4:50:18 PM

i mean, if you want me to give you the first thought that comes to mind when looking at that painting as it relates to tragedy

i see someone in pain for being excluded
which is one of the most basic forms of personal suffering


but of course, thats what i thought after being prompted to look for tragedy
now, you could have said he was going to evoke fear
and i probably would have thought of something different

9/19/2005 4:55:07 PM

^^^^^

All I see out of that is an image, if framed, would look complement the color scheme in my living room.

9/19/2005 5:08:08 PM

^ha, i was thinking the whole time
"that would look really good over my couch

9/19/2005 5:23:22 PM

Quote :

"was there a biscuit in the middle?"

haha that took me a moment

9/19/2005 5:42:39 PM

SO YOU DON'T LIKE MARK ROTHKO

HOLY SHIT

WOW OMG NEITHER DO I

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

YOU COULD TAKE A TREK TO THE NEAREST COUNTRY CLUB TO VIEW SOME REALIST ART THAT BLOWS ALSO

INSTEAD OF USING SHITTY ABSTRACT ARTISTS AS EXAMPLES

HOW ABOUT USING SOME GOOD ARTISTS

SUCH AS DALE CHIHULY



http://www.chihuly.com/
http://images.google.com/images?q=chihuly&hl=en&hs=gvT&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N&tab=wi

maybe you don't like chihuly's work either - i don't really give a flying fuck. I happen to think it looks cool. It doesn't make me cry, happy, sad, angry, or terrified - it just looks cool

you're not obligated to like every artist out there. find someone you like and stfu

goddamn


[Edited on September 19, 2005 at 7:11 PM. Reason : s]

9/19/2005 6:51:57 PM

art is dumb

9/19/2005 6:59:04 PM

I think Frosh has the best attitude toward "high art" i've ever seen.

9/20/2005 8:40:08 AM