The Great Art Debate

[thebish]

that's an interesting and fairly common take on art - one that Tango has often tried to describe - art as "craft" - it being the skilled technique that makes it - as if admiring the skill of the craftsman is the key...

I'll never realise why people still try to put art into a definition that everybody has to understand and accept.

just to be clear - has anyone actually tried to do that?

The very fact that so much controversy surround the term seems to indicate, yes, all the time and for donkey's years.

surely that simply means there is a healthy debate around differing ideas rather than that some people have tried to make everybody do anything...?

[TANGODANCER]

that's an interesting and fairly common take on art - one that Tango has often tried to describe - art as "craft" - it being the skilled technique that makes it - as if admiring the skill of the craftsman is the key...

I'll never realise why people still try to put art into a definition that everybody has to understand and accept.

just to be clear - has anyone actually tried to do that?

The very fact that so much controversy surround the term seems to indicate, yes, all the time and for donkey's years.

surely that simply means there is a healthy debate around differing ideas rather than that some people have tried to make everybody do anything...?

Sigh...! Bish, I have nowhere used the term of making anyone do anything, that's you speaking, not me. I said - read the post-, put art into a (one) definition that everyone has to understand and accept (as art, not some, prison sentence crime). It can't be done for the reasons I stated in the post (did you read that bit?). Everybody has their own ideas, and thus it will always be. I doubt the R & A would consider my views as a "healthy debate" if I said some of theirs were bullshit? They'd just tell me I didn't understand art, something I stated quite clearly in the same post. No debate really needed at all as it was just my view.

Can we press on?

[thebish]

Can we press on?

I thought we were!

(and this thread is called "the great art debate" - so surely it is the place for debate?? is your view not open for debate?? mine is - that's the point of a thread that is called a debate.)

[William the White]

i leave for a long weekend in venice tomorrow.

i have plans for Art, ancient, modern and - mostly - Renaissance...

will report...

[Bruce Rioja]

i leave for a long weekend in venice tomorrow.

i have plans for Art, ancient, modern and - mostly - Renaissance...

will report...

But will end up posting the tales of the trip in the food and drink thread, no doubt

Have a great trip.

[William the White]

i leave for a long weekend in venice tomorrow.

i have plans for Art, ancient, modern and - mostly - Renaissance...

will report...

But will end up posting the tales of the trip in the food and drink thread, no doubt

Have a great trip.

Thank you, Bruce - food and drink thread may well be visited on my return.

[William the White]

Anyone who likes Renaissance Art would be overwhelmed by Venice. Well, actually, anyone with eyes would be overwhelmed.

I intend to return as soon as I can. But managed to see a lot the major works of Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese and Carpaccio in the major venues - Accademia, Doge's Palace and several churches and Scuola.

Add to this the very, very fine collection of 20th century art at the Peggy Guggenheim foundation and I'm kind of reeling.

My single favourite piece was the exquisite Madonna and Child by Bellini, which is in a side chapel at the huge Frari church. It is the most beautiful treatment of this hackneyed subject (I'm talking about art, not belief!) that I've ever seen.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brendanbear/2682854438/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is a very, very beautiful city. I loved every minute there.

[Bruce Rioja]

Well yeah, but you missed us coming back from two down.

[William the White]

Well yeah, but you missed us coming back from two down.

Lol! I got the news from daughter - claiming 'credit' for it...

Her text said 'me and grandad broke the bogey down at Ashton Gate' - she was present with my dad at the first victory we'd had at Bristol City in about 80 years. 1-0. Patterson first minute? He used to take her all over the country - she 12 or 13, he in his 70s. I love that - 50 years between them, the Whites bringing them together.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Add to this the very, very fine collection of 20th century art at the Peggy Guggenheim foundation and I'm kind of reeling.

Was there much Italian stuff in there?

Apart from Giacometti, I'm always surprised by how limited Italy's contribution to 20th century art seems to be.

[bobo the clown]

Add to this the very, very fine collection of 20th century art at the Peggy Guggenheim foundation and I'm kind of reeling.

Was there much Italian stuff in there?

Apart from Giacometti, I'm always surprised by how limited Italy's contribution to 20th century art seems to be.

Bunga-Bunga not count ?

[William the White]

Add to this the very, very fine collection of 20th century art at the Peggy Guggenheim foundation and I'm kind of reeling.

Was there much Italian stuff in there?

Apart from Giacometti, I'm always surprised by how limited Italy's contribution to 20th century art seems to be.

mmmm... I guess Modigliani spans the 19th/20th but has a fair claim to bringing something authentic and new to modern art... but, yes, several by Italian futurists that I didn't know at all, including these two of the list of seven i made that I want to research more:

Gino Severini's Blue Dancer - gloriously vivacious...

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=h ... Q&dur=4108" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And what I think was my favourite single piece of the entire exhibition - even before Picasso and Braque brilliant works - Russolo's The Solidity of Fog... all the online images I've found make it look more explicit than it is... If you can, fade out the lines of the image on the bottom right to the point that you know they are there, but have to search for them... I did... i loved this work and will research the artist, who i didn't know at all before...

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=h ... BQ&dur=190" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[TANGODANCER]

Anyone who likes Renaissance Art would be overwhelmed by Venice. Well, actually, anyone with eyes would be overwhelmed.

I intend to return as soon as I can. But managed to see a lot the major works of Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese and Carpaccio in the major venues - Accademia, Doge's Palace and several churches and Scuola.

Add to this the very, very fine collection of 20th century art at the Peggy Guggenheim foundation and I'm kind of reeling.

My single favourite piece was the exquisite Madonna and Child by Bellini, which is in a side chapel at the huge Frari church. It is the most beautiful treatment of this hackneyed subject (I'm talking about art, not belief!) that I've ever seen.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brendanbear/2682854438/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is a very, very beautiful city. I loved every minute there.

Venice, and not a single mention of Canaletto Will?

[Bruce Rioja]

Venice, and not a single mention of Canaletto Will?

What a waste of money he was.

[William the White]

Venice, and not a single mention of Canaletto Will?

What a waste of money he was.

That Len Canaletto was a serious disappointment...

And, in response to Tango's question - I saw not one Canaletto in the numerous galleries and other holders of art (mainly churches) I visited... Which is not surprising because I was looking mostly for the masterworks of the Renaissance...

But we did stay in the Hotel Canaletto, just off San Marco Piazza, which i recommend whole-heartedly for location and breakfast... but only if, as for us, you get a deal (in our case via lastminute.com) ....

I suspect Venice does not celebrate him as much as we might expect...

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Gino Severini's Blue Dancer - gloriously vivacious...

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=h ... Q&dur=4108" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And what I think was my favourite single piece of the entire exhibition - even before Picasso and Braque brilliant works - Russolo's The Solidity of Fog... all the online images I've found make it look more explicit than it is... If you can, fade out the lines of the image on the bottom right to the point that you know they are there, but have to search for them... I did... i loved this work and will research the artist, who i didn't know at all before...

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=h ... BQ&dur=190" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As ever, it's probably unwise to comment on the basis of Google images... but I won't let that stop me.

I don't like that Severini at all. For me, it's fussy paintings like that one that really show what geniuses Picasso, Braque, Gris etc were in their lyrical, economical cubism - which is not to say that all three of those men didn't have their flops, because they did.

It's interesting, because I can't recall another cubist representation of dancers... obviously there is Picasso's Three Dancers, but given the era and geographies in which the cubists, surrealists, futurists (and lots of other labels I've forgotten) were painting in, it's perhaps surprising that it isn't a more frequently visited subject.

I'd like to see the Russolo in the flesh.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

I suspect Venice does not celebrate him as much as we might expect...

I'm not sure we would expect it - Canaletto's market was always the English Grand Tourists (and later the American pretenders).

In fact, I'd be surprised if you told me that there were more than a handful of his major works in Venice?

[William the White]

I suspect Venice does not celebrate him as much as we might expect...

I'm not sure we would expect it - Canaletto's market was always the English Grand Tourists (and later the American pretenders).

In fact, I'd be surprised if you told me that there were more than a handful of his major works in Venice?

I think you may be right.

But I think there is a museum of 18th Century art - there may well be examples there. I didn't give this one a priority for obvious reasons, but may well check it out on a future visit.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Were I in London this event would be like a magnet. Frieze Masters. The annual art fair this year offers works by the the famous throughout the centuries.

Good article in today's Guardian also, in part discussing art as commodity and access to it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/ ... cret-world" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hooray - get the art debate on the first page again!

Ok, now that Will is back from his own Grand Tour, let's deal wih a few of the issues that article raises.

First up, this one.

Frieze Masters demonstrates the immense energy in today's historical art market. But is this such a marvellous thing? It is surely a temptation for museums and public bodies that own art. A newspaper in Derby recently challenged the city council, which owns paintings by the British genius Joseph Wright of Derby, to sell them off as an alternative to cutting services.

That kind of argument will get louder as the art economy booms and the real economy languishes.

http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/Time- ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I find it difficult to comment on this specific case, because I don't know what sort of collection Derby has and I don't know how many people see it at the moment. He was a one trick pony but he was magnificent at it: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/wri ... rge-t06670" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I suspect a lot of the art in municipal collections isn't really the council's to sell and they are restricted by terms of a trust that mean it can only be displayed to the public.

But the principle is interesting - should Derby sell its Joseph Wrights?

[TANGODANCER]

And what I think was my favourite single piece of the entire exhibition - even before Picasso and Braque brilliant works - Russolo's The Solidity of Fog... all the online images I've found make it look more explicit than it is... If you can, fade out the lines of the image on the bottom right to the point that you know they are there, but have to search for them... I did... i loved this work and will research the artist, who i didn't know at all before...

That's almost a very good painting. Excellent use of colour, but why such defined concentric circles in a painting of fog?
Not sure why the distinct light at the top either. I like it.