Someone told me recently that an artistīs place in any society is to show
that society new ways of thinking. This struck me as incontrovertably
true.
If art is the way in which artists express themselves, and their purpose is
to show us new ways of thinking, doesnīt it follow that you should be able
to measure the quality of art by how well it expresses the artistīs
purpose?
Therefore good art is art that makes you or the people around you think
differently. Bad art is art that doesnīt do that.
Does this theory work?
____________________ So Sayeth Me
Xaoswolf
Fanatic
Posts: 463 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 18/6/2002 at 10:28 AM
I would say that the purpose is not always to make you think differently.
By that way of thinking, the Mona Lisa, which is a clasic painting, and a
wonderful work of art, pales in comparison to the guy that takes paint
enimas and sprays the canvas, causing you to think several different
things, none of which are normal thoughts.
Now, if the ass painter could reproduce a work like the Mona Lisa, then he
would by far be the better artist, due to the thoughts provoked by his
work, and sheer talent. As it is though, he is simply a guy with a hose
and some splattered canvas.
____________________ Sometimes I dream about dinosaurs shopping for cargo shorts at the Gap.
Does that make me a bad person?
Alugarde
Member
Posts: 185 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 18/6/2002 at 10:45 AM
Does "think differently" include making people who donīt think do so?
____________________ l33t is the bastard cousin of contractions.
Abbadon
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Posts: 499 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 18/6/2002 at 10:58 AM
What if the artist has no purpose?
____________________ Light is changing to shadow, and casting a shroud over all we have known.
Cashmere
Member
Posts: 58 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 18/6/2002 at 11:04 AM
Warning: a small art history rant
It is an accurate way to look at modern art: specifically made after
Francisco Goya*. Before then art was about whatever the patrons were paying
for, such as dukes paying homage to the saints and messiahs. Goya helped
this transition over to the modern way of expression through art with his
portraits of the British royal family and "Saturn Devouring his Children".
This was carried through Cezanne and picasso through the world wars and now
is more widely accepted. For art that was made back then. Good art that
makes this generation think will not be appreciated by the masses until the
next.
* There were many arists before him (such as Hieronymus Bosch) but he was
the first one widely accepted for works as a means of expression in the
western world.
____________________ "Truth is always on the move. It is always somewhere, but never in the
foreground, never on the surface."
-Franz Marc
pAris
Member
Posts: 115 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 18/6/2002 at 11:51 AM
Donīt get me started on this....I will say however, that good art sometimes
transcends thinking; it can give me chills, it can revulse, or it can
elevate the mood and spirit of the viewer/listener/experiencer. Okay,
enough with that. For the most part, I agree with you Devin - good art
should push you into new (and often uncomfortable) ways of being.
If it inspires any sort of emotion or thought, then itīs SUCCESSFUL art. I
would be just as happy with hate mail as with words of praise regarding my
own art....fortunately I"ve not recieved anything nasty as of yet, but hey,
Iīd still be flattered
Hate and revulsion are as strong as emotions as love and joy...both
reaquire the same amount of energy, hell, a frown takes more energy to make
than a smile, so thatīd mean theyīre putting even MORE into their reaction,
so you could even say it was BETTER than an exclamation of joy.
You could even call thomas kinkadeīs sacharine candy coated overly
dramatically lighted landscapes art because they make me want to BARF. I
fucking HATE thomas kinkade...but he inspires in me the the emotion of pea
soup ala linda blair... tho itīs probably not the reaction he WANTED or
EXPECTED, itīs something
Every time a customer hands me a check with a thomas kinkade painting on
it, it makes me want to stick a fork in their eye. But like I said, he
inspired an emotion in one of his detractors, and hence, succeeded.
Anything truly great will not be appreciated by the generation it was
created in. Most historic artists (albeit a few fortunate ones) lived
and/or died in mediocrity or poverty, only to have their work resold for
MILLIONS a decade, a bicentennial, or a centruy later, deemed "insighful"
"visionary". They are simply ahead of the curve in their own time. Sucks
but itīs true.
____________________ Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.
Dolorosa
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 856 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 18/6/2002 at 07:50 PM
Iīm gonnaī have to agree with the whole, artists purpose is to show society
new ways of thinking...itīs an ineffable fact really, even if the artist
themselves donīt see it that way.
However...there are always those few people who see "pretty pictures" and
only "pretty pictures" or ugly ones or whatever...thats when art takes a
blow to the kidneys and you find out that there are Artists, and people who
are good at making decorations. Iīm sure there is a pretty signifigant
distinction there...
*sniff* mmm...monkey taco.
____________________ In the valley of the Goats, the Goat Fucker is King
Devin
Administrator
Posts: 317 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Online
posted on 18/6/2002 at 07:59 PM
Iīm going to have to take up with Dolo on this one. Decorationmakers
arenīt artists in my book. And I donīt agree with the politically correct
version of the argument that if someoneīs expressing themselves, itīs good
art.
I also donīt agree that the Mona Lisa is a good example to use to make that
point. If I remember right, the reason people have always gone so nuts
over that painting is because looking at it, you wonder what sheīs thinking
about. That was a new way of looking at art back then. So it offered a
new way of thinking.
Saying technical ability has anything to do with art has one huge flaw:
Mariah Carey is technically a far better singer than Peter Murphy
*gasp* BITE your TOUNGE!!! *gasp*
just kidding....
Nail on the head devin *wham*
I think the day I finally decide to put a bullet in my head is when I hear
someone see one of my paintings and say "Oh, how WONDERFUL!!! This will go
PERFECTLY in my living room, it matches my COUCH!!"
My parents are "decoration" art people. My momīs the type to see a
wonderful painting of a nude woman and say "couldnīt they have put a shirt
on that?" (sheīs actually said that to me over some of the work Iīve done,
and of prints that I had on my walls) and my dad goes fucking NUTS for
thomas kinkade...my dad would die happy if I painted like thomas
kinkade.
I stick to if it makes your mind do a flip flop for a second, makes your
gears grind, makes you do a double take or makes you feel
something..ANYTHING...then itīs art. Not whether or not youīre widely
accepted or if it matches the couches of half the so called "art patrons"
in the world. If you make those "art patrons" wet themselves, youīve
struck gold...you just wonīt realize it until youīre too old to care or
youīre dead.
I remember watching a documentary on picasso, and how when he locked
himself in a basement for months with naked prostitutes to create something
called (Iīm so wrong so bear with me and if YOU remember the name, please
refresh my memory) "the women/prostitutes/harolots of somethingorother" and
people were APALLED..DISGUSTED..called it an affront to everything
considered art. It about wrecked his career. A decade give or take later,
it was revealed to the world a second time and they couldnīt get ENOUGH of
it. Called it visionary, insighful, a MASTERPIECE.
Wierd. Or typical, I should say.
____________________ Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.
IamSquid
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 658 Registered: 27/5/2002 Status: Offline
posted on 18/6/2002 at 11:44 PM
I never thought Iīd hear anyone compare Mariah Carey to Peter
Murphey....
Anyway, to mee good art is not just an alteration of thought, but of
emotion, idea, pretty-much everything. The better the art is, the more it
effects my thoughts, emotions, etc.
I always disagreed with the life influences art, art influences life
bullshit. Life IS art, art IS life.
____________________
i wanted to die, and then it progressed into wanting everyone else to
die so i could watch, and then me die.
-ickgirl
Dolorosa
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 856 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 19/6/2002 at 01:43 AM
Dude...I should be an artist...
____________________ In the valley of the Goats, the Goat Fucker is King
Comedian
Fanatic
Posts: 213 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 19/6/2002 at 05:49 AM
How about good poetry?
A. E. Housman:
The Cherry Tree
"Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my three score years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow."
____________________ Make way for the bad guy!
Ironboots
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 893 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 19/6/2002 at 07:41 AM
Picasso: Everyone probably thought it was disgusting just because they were
covering for themselves... They didnīt want to be known as perverts...
(*looking at the picture* "Mary?!!" )
But after a while, enough people mustered up the courage to declare it
good.
But I sort of side with the so-called "decorators"... I like looking at art
that -looks- good. Sure, making something that makes me think is good, and
usually what looks good, is a good thinking point... It inspires the
imagination to carry beyond what is just in the painting/whatever.
I donīt go for stuff like DeKooning (however the hell you spell it)
because its just paint... Your imagination cannot carry you anywhere based
on that, besides trying to pick out shapes...
I went to an art museum, and there was a big (think mac-truck-sized)
irridescent cube in a large empty room. The cube had some bubbles in it...
But what is the freakinī point of that?!!
Art needs a base in reality. At least a base... Iīm not talking about
ultra-realistic, with people exactly 7 heads tall, and buildings having
straight lines. I mean that there has to be something that I can recognize
in there, beyond the realm of abstract...
If not, then -THAT- is just decoration...
____________________ Piggy's got the Conch!
IamSquid
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 658 Registered: 27/5/2002 Status: Offline
posted on 19/6/2002 at 09:14 AM
Everyone whoīs creative is an artist and likewise, everything thatīs
creative is art, paintings, poetry, cinema, anything (hell, I sculpt with
lego, Iīll post pics of my castle sometime).
Although certain art has no place in a gallery. I went to an art
highschool and one of out discussions was how this guy got ahold of some
kind of preserving fluid and dipped stuff in it. He sold a piece for like
20 grand that was just a bag of dunkinī donuts dipped in this preserving
fluid. Everybody was freaking out calling him an idiot when I said anyone
who can sell a bag of donuts yoo canīt even eat for 20 grand is genius.
Still that crap doesnīt need to be on display. We decided to silkscreen a
Tshirt that said "I paid 20 grand on art and all I got was this lousy
shirt," put it on a hanger and dip it in preserving fluid. I sure as hell
wouldnīt bring my castle to a gallery.
____________________
i wanted to die, and then it progressed into wanting everyone else to
die so i could watch, and then me die.
-ickgirl
VampCourt
Fanatic
Posts: 293 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 19/6/2002 at 10:33 AM
i think that that theory is true. i think there is some art out there that
just isnt really art. a paint splatter on a canvas is not art to me. that
is lazyness. I think when a person puts thier all into a painting. actually
spends time working with it.. Its much more valuble wether it be good/bad.
as long as work has been put into it.
I myself speaking as a artist. I put alot of work into my pieces
(computer/charcoal/paint/pen) I spend time with it and even when i am
finnished with it.. i always look back and toggle with it.. because theres
always room for improvement.
____________________ "Thou shalt not be afraid of the dark, nor of graveyards nor ghosts nor the
devil, for thou art scarey and mean." -The Goth commandments
Schizo
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 897 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 19/6/2002 at 12:36 PM
Does it have to be a new thought, or is it art if it makes you think at
all? Think or feel, that is.
I think that is one element of art, and that there are other ones, too.
Such as, art should have deliberate balance and harmony to it. You canīt
just throw something together and expect to call it art, no matter if it
provokes thought or not.
For example, Bettieīs work posted in this gallery. Definitely thought and
feeling-provoking, and yet there is a flow and rhythm to it. It is
beautiful.
So-called art which is only produced to shock is not art. It is just a
reaction-provoker. Picasso did not produce his work with the intention to
shock, but with the intention to portray a certain mood or essence that he
perceived. The fact that his work shocked people was peripheral.
This is my opinion on the matter, for what itīs worth.
____________________ "You can tell by the scars on my arms and the cracks in my hips and the
dents in my car and the blisters on my lips that I'm not the carefullest of
girls." - Dresden Dolls, "Girl Anachronism"
IamSquid
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 658 Registered: 27/5/2002 Status: Offline
posted on 20/6/2002 at 02:03 AM
I should mention that I find aestheitcs to be important to art but thereīs
really no rules to aethetics other than the fact that certain people just
like the way certain things look.
I think more important than provoking thoughts, emotions, etc, in others is
how the work effects the artist, especially durring the creative process.
Take for example Giger, I like Gigerīs work for aethetic reasons but more
than anything heīs obviously sublimating alot of energy into his work.
____________________
i wanted to die, and then it progressed into wanting everyone else
to
/>
die so i could watch, and then me die.
-ickgirl
Dolorosa
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 856 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 20/6/2002 at 07:59 AM
Good point archituethus...(Did I spell that right?)
Art and Aesthetics need not be immutual concepts. Me...I must admit I
fully enjoy a well created synthesis of the two. īCause hey...if it looks
like crap, smells like crap...well...*shrug* It COULD be art...but itīs
still definately crap...heh.
____________________ In the valley of the Goats, the Goat Fucker is King
callei
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 759 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 20/6/2002 at 11:11 AM
I think part of the problem in classifing art is that we dont have the
right words for it. a hand made chair is art, a painting is art, a scribble
with crayons is art etc.
When we say it makes us think or feel, we are being impresice i think. art
could be that which makes us both think and feel at the same time.
Typically we do one or the other, not both together. So when something
provokes both thought and feeling AT ONCE, then it is art. That is i think
what we all mean when we say "make you stop and think" or " makes us react"
or "changes the way that we think".
it is art if it makes us think of home and feel
peaceful/angry/lost/homesick/nostalgic/hungry etc AT THE SAME TIME.
It is art if it makes us thin about poverty/ the way that other people
dream or sex, AND makes us feel something at the same time.
I think art is sincronatic in that it allows or facilitates a destinct
paradiem shift in the human mind from linear to non-linear. it allows us to
think and feel congruently allowing us to be more alive, more human, if
only for a second.
____________________ Real goths wear silver and crosses to keep the werewolves and vampires
away.
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