The Great 20th Century Art Scam!

The Art Renewal Center ^ | FR Post 4-19-2003 | F r e d R o s s

[buffyt]

When a tread is posted with bad formatting you can be sure that comment #2 or 3 will be a repost of the article with good formatting, as happened here.

[AnAmericanMother]

That's not Van Gogh, that's IIRC Millet's "The Gleaners". (I haven't checked).

Anyhow, no matter who it is, it couldn't be Van Gogh. He was essentially self-taught, and his paint handling was always much rougher.

[AnAmericanMother]

Anyone who thinks Pollack, Rothko and DeKooning are hoaxes is an idiot.

I can speak to Jackson Pollock. It isn't generally known that he studied with Thomas Hart Benton. His work from that time is awful - he was apparently incapable of drawing a human or animal figure, and his paintings are superficial, clumsy imitations of Benton's swirling style.

While I can (at least somewhat) respect an artist who is competent in his work and goes abstract looking for theoretical limits (or whatever), I have absolutely no respect for a man who resorts to dribbling paint on large canvases because he is an incompetent representational artist. That gets pretty close to the category of "hoax."

[AnAmericanMother]

No art degree here, but an abiding interest in the field.

I agree that the "old masters" really were. . . . and I think it is because they were required to master a certain body of technique. In those days, an apprentice to a well known painter or a student in the Academy had a definite course of study to follow, and it set a sort of minimum standard of competence in accepted skills.

Now, anybody with some money to buy the materials (or the chutzpah to persuade the NEA or some gullible soul to pay for them for him) can self-ordain himself an "artist" and proclaim his product as "art". The result is pretty much the same as with all those self-ordained "preachers". The NEA jury members, each striving to outdo their fellows for radical "significance" and "perception", give their imprimatur to more and more outrageous products - with the result that there are no standards and (as my mother says) "Art is whatever you can get away with."

That said, I think this fellow paints with way too broad a brush (sorry, couldn't help myself.) While the strict representational style displays tremendous skill, there are other ways of conveying emotion and meaning - Turner is an excellent example as you point out. But for every trail-blazing genius like Turner, there are 1,000 modern wannabes perpetrating trash on the gullible.

[giotto]

freedomson wrote:
I've changed diapers and cleaned up steaming puddles of dog vomit that DeKooning would've envied.

DeKooning is truly nauseating. The colors are atrocious, the brush strokes are dirty--as if he never bothered to clean his brushes at all. Rothko is a total nothing. He killed himself from boredom, judging from his paintings. But Pollack at least gives the viewer something to look at. I love the complexity and the texture. But few know that Pollack was not as much of an innovator as he is credited for. He began his drip paintings after viewing an exhibit of drip paintings by Janet Sobel presented by none other than Peggy Guggenheim, Pollock's main patron. Pollock acknowledged that Sobel's paintings made an impression on him. Although his drip paintings went far beyond Sobel's efforts, she is never mentioned in the movie Pollock, which shows a scene where he accidentally drips some paint on the floor as the inspiration for his drip method.

[Sam Cree]

AAM, you are absolutely right, that last picture posted by CP is not a Van Gogh, but a Millet.

I personally don't dislike Pollack, however I also enjoy spatter painted floors, which are on the same level artistically, IMO.

[vannrox]

I can't believe that you think that this kind of art is "terribly dull".

Did you actually read the article?


The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer
Jean-Léon Gérôme


The finding of Moses
Lawrence Alma-Tadema


Daedalus and Icarus
Lord Frederick Leighton


A Priestess
John William Godward

,hr>
I see that perhaps you prefer the "Modern" forms of art that has flooded our Museums and have taken the funding from all the funding sources:


Henri Matisse

[bert]

Jackson Pollack

[bert]

Jackson Pollack

[Sam Cree]

I like Turner alot. But I also like the old masters, there has never been the like of them in ability and technique.

Would have been interesting to see what they could have done with modern colors, such as the cadmiums, and subject matter.

[squarebarb]

Turner couldn't have done what he did without classical training. An artist friend tells me they don't even teach the color wheel anymore in art school. Glad to see this article. I once shocked a roomfull of friends by saying Picasso was an out-and-out fraud.
And you really can't just throw some junk together and get it in an art show. You have to suck your way up the leftist/art establishment social ladder. Then your junk is proclaimed art and exhibited.

[AnAmericanMother]

Turner couldn't have done what he did without classical training.

Absolutely true. Self-portrait from 1799:

[MissL]

I totally agree. It would not be to the author's advantage to sing the glories of 20th century art or artists.
After dealing in the fine art market for over 25 years the only thing that I can add is that popularity of a certain form of art at any given time is cyclical. Artists fall in and out of favor with the public. There are thousands of good listed artists from all period who sell very reasonably. The art market is much like the stock market...one must be willing to speculate and hold on to a piece forever in some cases. My advice, buy what you like and don't whine if not everyone shares your enthusiasm for the artist. And it does sound as though the author has his heart, soul, career, and money wrapped up in a few artist he enjoys. If he bought well there should not be a problem.

[AnAmericanMother]

I personally don't dislike Pollack

Neither do I. But a little bit of that stuff goes a long way, and I can't see lionizing him as a major artist. In his defense, the spattering isn't entirely random, but that's about as far as I'll go in his defense!

Even Norman Rockwell's PARODY of Pollock is better work:

(Can you find the "JP"?)

[headsonpikes]

"You have to suck your way up the leftist/art establishment social ladder."

Exactly. All contemporary art is political, just because we live in a politicized, essentially totalitarian and socialist era.

This age may be dying, but it has poisoned every aspect of human life, including the arts. They're all whores. ;^)

[Sam Cree]

"Art is subjective - my preferences are far different from the preferences of others, and that is as it should be"

IMO, it is appreciation for art that is more subjective, not so much the art itself. Art itself must be subjective to a degree, since we are all individuals, the old masters shared excellence of technique, but their work still retains great individuality. Yet there are specific standards of seeing, manipulation of paint, draftsmanship that are very much not subjective, mastery and usage of these things is a prerequisite to making good art.

"I happen to prefer the Impressionist works to the "Traditional" style, because the palettes are more pleasing to my eyes, and I tend to like the themes much better."

I also prefer the themes of the Impressionists, however the mastery of technique of the masters is unparalleled, recognizing that the Impressionists purposely did not make the traditional techniques their main concern. If I could afford to collect both, I would, though if I could only afford one great painting, I would choose an old master (I can't afford any, though). It is true that the impressionists used a much brighter palette, however many of the brighter colors used by the impressionists were just not available at all to the old masters, who relied instead on a series of transparent glazes for luminosity. I would have liked to have seen what they might have made of modern colors if they'd had them.

Regarding abstract art, when you really break it down, even the old masters' paintings are composed of nothing but abstract shapes that they have combined to give us their version of reality, therefore I have to think that abstract art can be good. It's just that most of it isn't.

[Sam Cree]

Well, spatter painted floors are not entirely random either ;-D And I notice that cheaper fiberglass boats get the "Pollack" treatment too, on their interior bulkheads.

But IMO, dead leaves on a forest floor are quite beautiful, they make radom patterns that could probably qualify as art, even if they were not immediately identifiable as leaves.

The Rockwell painting is cool, my favorite of his is the one with a redhaired mermaid caught in a lobster trap.

[AnAmericanMother]

Pretty cute.

Howard Pyle does nice mermaids too:

[vannrox]

A great article about Picasso being a fraud. Also at the Art Renewal Center. Go HERE.

[vannrox]

Howard Pyle is Awesome. Go Here.