[Rembrandt_fan]

Abstract art isn't for everyone, but I like art that makes one strive for understanding and appreciation. And I happen to like Helen Frankenthaler's work. The woman was a genius. Seriously. She had a command of color and form, along with an amazing technical expertise demonstrated by her handling of materials, that few, living or dead, could or can match. To like her work doesn't make one a snob, and one doesn't need a degree in Art History or criticism to appreciate her accomplishment. The 'Emperor's New Clothes' syndrome exists, but seems to me to be the purview of post-modernists like Koons and Hirst--along with kitsch dealers like Kincaid: all of them cynical operators who prey on the trendy and the ill-informed. Unlike those frauds and hacks, Frankenthaler was the real thing, striving her whole professional life to achieve a synthesis of technique and idea, and deserves better than the treatment she's been receiving on this thread.

[TigersEye]

I was cracking up over the title before the thread was even loaded on my browser. The article had me in stitches. When I saw the painting I just about split a gut. My first thought was; the kid saw it and thought to himself "Oh, so that's where people put their old gum around here."

[Republicanprofessor]

Well said. I tried in post 143, but I think it was ignored.

We'll just keep up the good fight.