Modern Art

inconsequential said:

I used to write a lot of poetry in the 80s and 90s. Once, as a joke, I wrote a nonsensical poem that was nothing but contradictions arranged with florid language. The Lit majors were gushing about the symbolism and depth. I was so flabbergasted that I never told them it was all bunk but I stopped writing poetry. LOL

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Some thoughts for your consideration on modern art:

– “Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.” – ILN, 5/5/28

– “The decay of society is praised by artists as the decay of a corpse is praised by worms.” – Shaw, 1909

– “The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs.” – Chapter 16, Heretics, 1905

– “Savages and modern artists are alike strangely driven to create something uglier than themselves. But the artists find it harder.” – ILN, 11/25/05

– “By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpopular to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece.” – On Detective Novels, Generally Speaking

– “And all over the world, the old literature, the popular literature, is the same. It consists of very dignified sorrow and very undignified fun. Its sad tales are of broken hearts; its happy tales are of broken heads.” – Charles Dickens

– “The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say.” – Daily News, 4-22-05

This is how GK Chesterton writes about everything. Generally thinking much deeper than we do. If that's not a good reason to discover him, that you can take any topic and find stuff like this, that is completely relevant today, then I don't know what is.

My philosophy on art is: "If I can do it, it isn't art."

It's held me in pretty good stead over the years. =D

88Devin07 said:

Currently taking a class on modern art, and Ive already taking two on modern architecture. Am I the only one that finds modernist architecture and modern art to be disgusting and unChristian?

I've been reading from our textbook and it talks about Picasso painting about a brothel he once went to, and another painting we saw in class was just a huge painting of a close up of a woman bare from the waist down, no real dignity or respect as in romantic(ism) style paintings, just in your face crudeness...

Does anyone else find it to be immoral or unChristian? It seems it's always promoting rejection of traditional values and beliefs.

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Modern art is a broad concept. I am not a fan of Picasso, but modern art is not limited to him. I absolutely love many modern art paintings. I do not find them any more un-Christian than traveling up 50 flights on a glass elevator as opposed to climbing stone stairs.
And modern architecture - it's amazing! (My grandma was an architect, so I had exposure.)

what does it for me about most modern art can be found in the modern art section of the museum in DC. there are (or were, I hope were) 12 panels called the 12 Stations of the Cross that consist of a series of offwhite lines (not in any cross shapes) on white canvas....that's it. not only could I do that one handed, but I don't see how that actually says anything about the Cross.

Mariya116 said:

Modern art is a broad concept. I am not a fan of Picasso, but modern art is not limited to him. I absolutely love many modern art paintings. I do not find them any more un-Christian than traveling up 50 flights on a glass elevator as opposed to climbing stone stairs.
And modern architecture - it's amazing! (My grandma was an architect, so I had exposure.)

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I love a lot of modern art too.

M.

I love some modern art, and then there is some that I don't get. Sometimes after you actually take the time to learn about the artist and what they were attempting to do, then you at least gain an appreciation for their work. I really think it is unfortunate for people to just dismiss it all as "garbage". Some of the Cubist work blows my mind (i.e. Georges Braque, The Portuguese). I love Impressionism too. I stood in front of Monet's Water Lilies triptych this summer and it took my breath away.

And FWIW, the "modernist" art movement extended from the 1860s to about 1970.

Photini said:

I love some modern art, and then there is some that I don't get. Sometimes after you actually take the time to learn about the artist and what they were attempting to do, then you at least gain an appreciation for their work. I really think it is unfortunate for people to just dismiss it all as "garbage". Some of the Cubist work blows my mind (i.e. Georges Braque, The Portuguese). I love Impressionism too. I stood in front of Monet's Water Lilies triptych this summer and it took my breath away.

And FWIW, the "modernist" art movement extended from the 1860s to about 1970.

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I don't know if impressionism is considered part of modern art, but it's my favorite! Claude Monet!!!

Mariya116 said:

I don't know if impressionism is considered part of modern art, but it's my favorite! Claude Monet!!!

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Yes, it is considered modern art.

"Impressionism" was initially used as a derogatory term to describe to Monet's work. The critics hated it.

Photini said:

Yes, it is considered modern art.

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Then it's definitely not "something I could do." Looks very complicated to create... Monet's "Impression Sunrise" is breathtaking.

My preschooler does modern art all the time. Why I'm not richer than Warren Buffet thanks to my boy's masterpieces, I'll never know....

Rus, you crack me up. Someone could start a thread about tablesaws or Hungarian cabinet-making and you'd figure out a way to link a Chesterton quote to it!

rusmeister said:

Some thoughts for your consideration on modern art:

– “Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.” – ILN, 5/5/28

– “The decay of society is praised by artists as the decay of a corpse is praised by worms.” – Shaw, 1909

– “The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs.” – Chapter 16, Heretics, 1905

– “Savages and modern artists are alike strangely driven to create something uglier than themselves. But the artists find it harder.” – ILN, 11/25/05

– “By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpopular to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece.” – On Detective Novels, Generally Speaking

– “And all over the world, the old literature, the popular literature, is the same. It consists of very dignified sorrow and very undignified fun. Its sad tales are of broken hearts; its happy tales are of broken heads.” – Charles Dickens

– “The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say.” – Daily News, 4-22-05

This is how GK Chesterton writes about everything. Generally thinking much deeper than we do. If that's not a good reason to discover him, that you can take any topic and find stuff like this, that is completely relevant today, then I don't know what is.

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gurneyhalleck1 said:

My preschooler does modern art all the time. Why I'm not richer than Warren Buffet thanks to my boy's masterpieces, I'll never know....

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Because you suck at advertising... You really think some of the stuff that passes for art today would be gushed over without a good adman behind it?

gracefullamb said:

Because you suck at advertising... You really think some of the stuff that passes for art today would be gushed over without a good adman behind it?

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Gurney, this is because Chesterton was a complete thinker. He thought about, and wrote about everything because he held a complete worldview.

His comments on art, though, are especially relevant from the standpoint of not only the general thinker, but from the standpoint of professional training. His formal higher education was in art, so one cannot dismiss him as a mere critic, as he remained an artist throughout his life.

Now the really interesting thing would be if you offered intelligent and thoughtful commentary on any of his statements (if only to admit that no one here expresses such compact thought)...

And yes, you could bring up most any subject and find some general comment of his about it.

Mariya116 said:

Then it's definitely not "something I could do." Looks very complicated to create... Monet's "Impression Sunrise" is breathtaking.

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Absolutely. And contrary to what some people like to think, their 5 year old children can not do what the Modern artists did. (And it appears that many people don't even know what "modern art" refers to.) Picasso is a common target, but what most people don't realize, is that he could draw and paint very realistically and in the "classic" style. His early works look nothing like his Cubist works.

I am actually very happy that we live in a time where artists are free to experiment with different ways of expression, instead of having to work under the approval of the "academy". I do find some work to be pretentious, and I don't "get" some more contemporary works, but I am very slow to dismiss something simply because of my failure to understand it. I really do try to discover more about the artist & their vision before I form a judgment about their work. As an artist myself, I wish more people were willing to do that.

Look at this one:

http://www.trentonmonitor.com/m/Image.aspx?name=2833a.jpg

I remember a news report from a few years back where a lady took some of her toddler's finger paintings to an art show and sold one of them for several thousand dollars. The critics were making a fuss over her choice of colors and the symbolism of various aspects of it. They were a little upset when she told them about the artist.

I think Photini has the right approach to art. Since art is a means of expression, some (a lot?) of it requires some personal "context" to gain a more full expression. I also think the problem many have with modern art is how so many critics seem to value edginess and oddness more than what the artist is trying to express. Perhaps it is as much the fault of the artists who value edginess and oddness over genuinely expressing what they mean.

Photini said:

Absolutely. And contrary to what some people like to think, their 5 year old children can not do what the Modern artists did. (And it appears that many people don't even know what "modern art" refers to.) Picasso is a common target, but what most people don't realize, is that he could draw and paint very realistically and in the "classic" style. His early works look nothing like his Cubist works.

I am actually very happy that we live in a time where artists are free to experiment with different ways of expression, instead of having to work under the approval of the "academy". I do find some work to be pretentious, and I don't "get" some more contemporary works, but I am very slow to dismiss something simply because of my failure to understand it. I really do try to discover more about the artist & their vision before I form a judgment about their work. As an artist myself, I wish more people were willing to do that.

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I hope that my own position isn't seen as so simplistic as all that.

I would neither support "an academy of experts" nor the formation of hasty judgements.

I would attempt to say that Impressionism, for example, has some very complex works that took a good deal of skill to produce.

Nevertheless, I think they represent a degradation from the realism that came before, never mind medieval art. The chief degradation, to my mind, is philosophical, and a test which Impressionism (to take it as an example of a better modern art) demonstrates this in is its elimination of lines, which is really an elimination of definitions. Everything becomes pantheistically wedded to everything else, and like the very best lies, it is still recognizably close to truth. The fuzziness of the picture of the impression, which is already a replacement of truth with a subjective impression, reflects the fuzziness of modern thought, which increasingly fudges definitions and understandings.

So the result can still contain beauty, and perhaps even truth, though the truth becomes doubtful, which can make the impression itself a false one. Impressionism does not remove us so far from clarity as cubism and other, more degraded forms.

If I were to try to put it into one sentence, I would say that in general, modern art promotes subjectivism, the general denial of objective truth that we all ought to recognize. Truth and beauty are NOT merely subjective, and art that does not communicate truth or beauty is not art, and if it speaks in a private language known only to the artist, then the failure to understand is not in us, but in the thing that fails the test of art.

Also, if "modern" art refers to art from a defined period, then would current art be called "post modern" art?