Everything that is art

[devogue]

My favourite piece of Dada... possibly one of the most contentious artworks ever displayed in a gallery. People are still arguing over what it represents almost 100 years after it was shown.

For me it will always be...

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

[charlou]

I have never understood the appeal of Matisse. His paintings are kindergartenish. Critics praised him for "dispensing with" such things as depth, perspective and proportion - personally, I have never been convinced he knew how to use them in the first place - any evidence that he did is scant!

I like the lack of pretension and conformity. I find his work just a little trippy to contemplate, rather than naive as such.



Agree on Kandinsky ... one of my favourite artists too. Fresh, playful colour and movement that cheers the mind ..


Another of my faves is to the other extreme of emotiveness ... Francisco Goya .. his series .. the Black Paintings ... the Disasters of War ... Los Caprichos ... the darker side of humanity explored, satirised, charicaturised, never glorified.


Gallstones, did you ever play Name the Artist? Unfortunately some of the images are no longer there, but would love to see the thread kicked off again.

[Rum]

I have never understood the appeal of Matisse. His paintings are kindergartenish. Critics praised him for "dispensing with" such things as depth, perspective and proportion - personally, I have never been convinced he knew how to use them in the first place - any evidence that he did is scant!

I like the lack of pretension and conformity. I find his work just a little trippy to contemplate, rather than naive as such.



Agree on Kandinsky ... one of my favourite artists too. Fresh, playful colour and movement that cheers the mind ..


Another of my faves is to the other extreme of emotiveness ... Francisco Goya .. his series .. the Black Paintings ... the Disasters of War ... Los Caprichos ... the darker side of humanity explored, satirised, charicaturised, never glorified.


Gallstones, did you ever play Name the Artist? Unfortunately some of the images are no longer there, but would love to see the thread kicked off again.

It is worth remembering that people like Matisse, Picasso, the impressionists generally were ground breaking at the time. They also intellectualised what they were doing amongst themselves rather more than we tend to do today with modern art given we seem to be in something of an anti-intellectual dip culturally at the moment. Matisse was determined top strip away the artifices, the representationalism and 'realism' of art to reduce the subject to its barest visual essence. At the time such approaches were considered daring and adventurous - sometimes even scandalous. Easy to forget in an age of anything goes.

[Gallstones]

My favourite artist was Oliver Reed.

His greatest work, " Urine in Snow " sadly didn't survive, but it wasn't meant to, as it was performance art, but he was one of the greatest piss-artists of all time.

And that Kandinsky could have had a career in blanket design. What a waste !!!

• 

I like performance art too.

[Gallstones]

I have never understood the appeal of Matisse. His paintings are kindergartenish. Critics praised him for "dispensing with" such things as depth, perspective and proportion - personally, I have never been convinced he knew how to use them in the first place - any evidence that he did is scant!

i had similar misgivings regarding picasso it was only after watching a documentry on matisse did i finally get them both, and that appreciation or what ever you may call it only dawned after maybe 15 years of studying art and artists but thankyou for this thread should be interesting to see what opinions everyone may contribute

Fordo!
We don't see you around enough. I am so glad I could bring you out of that woodwork you've been keeping yourself in.

[Gallstones]

I have never understood the appeal of Matisse. His paintings are kindergartenish. Critics praised him for "dispensing with" such things as depth, perspective and proportion - personally, I have never been convinced he knew how to use them in the first place - any evidence that he did is scant!

i had similar misgivings regarding picasso it was only after watching a documentry on matisse did i finally get them both, and that appreciation or what ever you may call it only dawned after maybe 15 years of studying art and artists but thankyou for this thread should be interesting to see what opinions everyone may contribute

My point made for me.
If painting is meant to be some form of communication, Picasso has failed.
If it takes 15 years to get it, I fail to see why people can be bothered.

The first time I heard Bob Marley sing "no woman no cry", I got it within seconds.
Same with the stranglers and "golden brown". And Beethoven's "duh duh duh, duuuuuuuh".

Isn't it possible that after fifteen years of staring at the same spot, you start seeing things?

I disagree. My tastes for food and drink and music and TV shows are not what they were when I was five, nor what they became when I was 15. I have progressed and developed since and that can happen with art and music too. A single point in time doesn't define a person or a whole lifetime.

Visual art = seeing things.

[Gallstones]

I have never understood the appeal of Matisse. His paintings are kindergartenish. Critics praised him for "dispensing with" such things as depth, perspective and proportion - personally, I have never been convinced he knew how to use them in the first place - any evidence that he did is scant!

I like the lack of pretension and conformity. I find his work just a little trippy to contemplate, rather than naive as such.



Agree on Kandinsky ... one of my favourite artists too. Fresh, playful colour and movement that cheers the mind ..


Another of my faves is to the other extreme of emotiveness ... Francisco Goya .. his series .. the Black Paintings ... the Disasters of War ... Los Caprichos ... the darker side of humanity explored, satirised, charicaturised, never glorified.


Gallstones, did you ever play Name the Artist? Unfortunately some of the images are no longer there, but would love to see the thread kicked off again.

No.
Can we start it again?

[Gallstones]

Matisse

1900 Self Portrait


1903

[hadespussercats]

I love these sculptures by Bernini.

They don't photograph well. I'm going to try to show a few different perspectives, but they lose a lot when you're not in the room with them.

Somehow, the marble was warm, and luminous.

They made me cry.

(my namesake, here.)


Some of Daphne's leaves were so delicate, light shone through like wax paper:



Strange that I'm so drawn to images of rape.
Here, though, it seems like the moment of violent conquest is more about being transfigured.
Maybe, since they're mythic subjects, the images are more about exploring undercurrents of sexuality, harder to express in words--
old conflicts between nature and humanity, the beast within...

But the violence itself, untransformed, un-prettified, was an important part of my emotional reaction to them.

[Gallstones]

Well, they aren't urinals.

If I had not been told I would not have associated rape with these sculptures.
If I was to make a list of what I appreciate about them, what they are supposed to represent would be low on that list.
I am overtaken by the level of skill incumbent on creating them.

[hadespussercats]

Well, they aren't urinals.

If I had not been told I would not have associated rape with these sculptures.
If I was to make a list of what I appreciate about them, what they are supposed to represent would be low on that list.
I am overtaken by the level of skill incumbent on creating them.

Yes, the technical virtuosity is overwhelming. And I'm a sucker for know-how.

I'm usually not as into iconography or whatever, but Greek myths were an important part of my childhood-- the one re- Hades and Persephone, in particular-- so it was like seeing images of people I knew.

The little moments get me-- how you can see Hades' fingers digging in to Persephone's thigh.
And how dynamic they are-- shift your vantage just a bit, and you see what seems to be a completely different shape.
These are the sorts of things that make them stand out to me, when generally a room of Roman marble puts me right to sleep.

[Gallstones]

Well, they aren't urinals.

If I had not been told I would not have associated rape with these sculptures.
If I was to make a list of what I appreciate about them, what they are supposed to represent would be low on that list.
I am overtaken by the level of skill incumbent on creating them.

Yes, the technical virtuosity is overwhelming. And I'm a sucker for know-how.

I'm usually not as into iconography or whatever, but Greek myths were an important part of my childhood-- the one re- Hades and Persephone, in particular-- so it was like seeing images of people I knew.

I can approach understanding this, yes.

The little moments get me-- how you can see Hades' fingers digging in to Persephone's thigh.
And how dynamic they are-- shift your vantage just a bit, and you see what seems to be a completely different shape.
These are the sorts of things that make them stand out to me, when generally a room of Roman marble puts me right to sleep.

But, but...a person has to see them in the flesh to do this


I would be unable to tell the difference between Greek and Roman.

[hadespussercats]

Well, they aren't urinals.

If I had not been told I would not have associated rape with these sculptures.
If I was to make a list of what I appreciate about them, what they are supposed to represent would be low on that list.
I am overtaken by the level of skill incumbent on creating them.

Yes, the technical virtuosity is overwhelming. And I'm a sucker for know-how.

I'm usually not as into iconography or whatever, but Greek myths were an important part of my childhood-- the one re- Hades and Persephone, in particular-- so it was like seeing images of people I knew.

I can approach understanding this, yes.

The little moments get me-- how you can see Hades' fingers digging in to Persephone's thigh.
And how dynamic they are-- shift your vantage just a bit, and you see what seems to be a completely different shape.
These are the sorts of things that make them stand out to me, when generally a room of Roman marble puts me right to sleep.

But, but...a person has to see them in the flesh to do this


I would be unable to tell the difference between Greek and Roman.

Sorry!

My scanner iz broke, so I'm limited with what I can post, unless I go searching for certain images, which is frustrating when they're RIGHT THERE on my shelf.

I'll try to find things that work better in 2-d.

As for the differences between Greek and Roman, I could get into it, if you're interested, but in this case it was easy-- Italian name, and the sculptures were in Rome.

BTW- urinals can be interesting, too. But for me there's an extra level of interest added when I can see how much technical craftsmanship went into making a piece. And these sculptures are also blatantly emotional, which is another thing I've been known to respond to-- though it's not a necessary aspect of art I enjoy.

[Pappa]

My point made for me.
If painting is meant to be some form of communication, Picasso has failed.
If it takes 15 years to get it, I fail to see why people can be bothered.

The first time I heard Bob Marley sing "no woman no cry", I got it within seconds.
Same with the stranglers and "golden brown". And Beethoven's "duh duh duh, duuuuuuuh".

Isn't it possible that after fifteen years of staring at the same spot, you start seeing things?

I disagree. My tastes for food and drink and music and TV shows are not what they were when I was five, nor what they became when I was 15. I have progressed and developed since and that can happen with art and music too. A single point in time doesn't define a person or a whole lifetime.

Visual art = seeing things.

Most of my favourite works of art appeal to me precisely because their meaning is obscure or impossible to deduce.

[rachelbean]

I love a lot of American Abstract Expressionist art.

I love the sculptures of David Smith:



And his later Cube stuff.

The photography of Aaron Siskind has always been a favourite of mine:



From the painters, I particularly like Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still and Arshile Gorky.



Jackson Pollock's work really should be seen in person as the reproductions simply don't do them any justice at all justice. The work I seem to have found most emotional connection with when seen in a gallery was probably Kline's. It was almost haunting that I found them very powerful but couldn't pin any specific emotion on them, so I seemed to feel a continual flux of thoughts and feelings as my brain tried to tie down exactly how they were making me respond.

I also love European Modernism and Dada, but I'll save that for another post.

Pretty much everything Pappa said. Rothko is probably my favorite but I love a lot of the abstract expressionists/modernists (Pollock, Kline - and I very much agree about his live exhibit, Gorky, Kooning). I also love Picasso, Miro, Dali, Ernst, Kadinsky and a lot of surrealists, and dada... but mostly I just know what I like when I see it

Another of my favorites is Paul Klee: