The Great Art Debate

[General Mannerheim]

I have got a few of his prints knocking about at home but just took delivery of my first real Alexander Millar, A Jig For Jack, one of 495. i fleeced some old girl on gumtree for it, £100! well pleased.

I'm after one of his sculptures now, but im not paying £600 for one. there are rumours of a new collection this year but i like his older ones best 'Keepy Uppy' or this one 'Surprise Suprise'

[William the White]

Sounds good, Will.

Italy is, for me, the equivalent of your Spain, and I am going to look to resuscitate my Italian lessons this year, as well as fitting in visits to at least a couple of places on the Italian Grand Tour I am yet to visit - places like Parma, Bologna, Urbino, Vicenza, Orvieto, Mantua, Padua and, perhaps, my first trip to Venice.

How is your thinking coming along with regards to some more formal study of art this year?

I am very tempted to apply for scholarship to enrol on this course, which, with the right electives, includes a grounding in the history of European art, as well a study of the law and business of the art world: http://www.christieseducation.com/londo ... s_msc.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We were signed up for a course in British 20th C Art, but have withdrawn - in order to focus more directly on Hispanic culture.

I'd say that course fits you like a glove and you should definitely pursue it... Perfect for you, I'd have thought...

And put Venice at the very top of your Italian grand tour. Stunning.

[bobo the clown]

And put Venice at the very top of your Italian grand tour. Stunning.

Only the 2nd of January & already I agree with W-t-W on something.

Amazing.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

I may have written elsewhere how Venice has never appealed, for some reason. In my mind I have it as a pointless overblown Disneyland not much part of the Dolce Vita fantasy I have constructed for myself. Do any Venetians actually move around by gondola these days? And I don't much care for Gothic architecture.

But, enough people have told me I am wrong, so I must be. And I am interested in their painters in a story that starts with the Bellini and Giorgone, moves on with Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese and culminates with Tiepolo and Canaletto.

Any thoughts on the best time of year to go?

[General Mannerheim]

I may have written elsewhere how Venice has never appealed, for some reason. In my mind I have it as a pointless overblown Disneyland not much part of the Dolce Vita fantasy I have constructed for myself. Do any Venetians actually move around by gondola these days? And I don't much care for Gothic architecture.

But, enough people have told me I am wrong, so I must be. And I am interested in their painters in a story that starts with the Bellini and Giorgone, moves on with Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese and culminates with Tiepolo and Canaletto.

Any thoughts on the best time of year to go?

i had this picture of Venice too, and still have it having been there. Well worth the visit but much prefered Verona.

[William the White]

I may have written elsewhere how Venice has never appealed, for some reason. In my mind I have it as a pointless overblown Disneyland not much part of the Dolce Vita fantasy I have constructed for myself. Do any Venetians actually move around by gondola these days? And I don't much care for Gothic architecture.

But, enough people have told me I am wrong, so I must be. And I am interested in their painters in a story that starts with the Bellini and Giorgone, moves on with Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese and culminates with Tiepolo and Canaletto.

Any thoughts on the best time of year to go?

Venice is tourist world, it's true. The reason for this is that it's stunningly and absurdly beautiful, atmospheric and utterly unique. Don't think Gothic. Think liquid. Don't think massive and monumental, not much of Venice fits that bill, and even that that does is transformed by water and art. Think narrow alleys, little bridges, tiny squares.

Only tourists use gondolas. Venetians use water buses. You will as well!

Don't go in summer. Spring or autumn (or winter). Or Carnival, I guess.

The renaissance art can be overwhelming.

Tintoretto was a revelation for me and my wife.

[bobo the clown]

I may have written elsewhere how Venice has never appealed, for some reason. In my mind I have it as a pointless overblown Disneyland not much part of the Dolce Vita fantasy I have constructed for myself. Do any Venetians actually move around by gondola these days? And I don't much care for Gothic architecture.

But, enough people have told me I am wrong, so I must be. And I am interested in their painters in a story that starts with the Bellini and Giorgone, moves on with Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese and culminates with Tiepolo and Canaletto.

Any thoughts on the best time of year to go?

Venice is tourist world, it's true. The reason for this is that it's stunningly and absurdly beautiful, atmospheric and utterly unique. Don't think Gothic. Think liquid. Don't think massive and monumental, not much of Venice fits that bill, and even that that does is transformed by water and art. Think narrow alleys, little bridges, tiny squares.

Only tourists use gondolas. Venetians use water buses. You will as well!

Don't go in summer. Spring or autumn (or winter). Or Carnival, I guess.

The renaissance art can be overwhelming.

Tintoretto was a revelation for me and my wife.

Out of season, but catch it after the days begin to draw out a little so you can spend as goodly amount of time soaking in the majesty of the place. Also a few dusks/sunsets or dawns ... or both. So before or after tourist filled Easter.

The art IS overwhelming in that there's just so damn much of it. The streets, the canals, the briges, squares, churches, halls. All melt into each other. You will find places you later can't refind. Great restaurants as well as pizzaria's & trattoria. Good wine bars. It is simply magnificent. However, you'll have become exhausted of it after maybe 4 days. Oh, by all means return .... & you will want to ... but there is too much to take in. Get to Murano & maybe Burano for a bit of a change.

Avoid the heavy tourist traps for eats/drinks & the prices will be similar to the UK. Avoid those places between 11am - 3pm also & you'll miss the day trippers & people from the cruise ships.

Do this & if you don't like the place I will be amazed.

[William the White]

Just returned from a second visit to The First Cut at Manchester Art Gallery. I recommended it three months ago.

I was right.

Art from paper, from abstract to animation, from exquisite miniatures to huge walls.

Outstanding. Two more weeks to go. Free.

[thebish]

I have checked this out and it seems it actually did happen - The Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize in the feature writing category for Gene Weingarten's April 2007 story about this experiment.

“A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that 1,100 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by, and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace, and stopped for a few seconds, and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping, and continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried, but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally, the mother pushed hard, and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the most talented musicians in the world. He had just played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste, and priorities of people.

The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

it is a question often asked (in different ways) on here... Do we only recognise/appreciate beauty/art when someone else gives us "permission" to do so - or when we have been TOLD it is beauty/great art?

[Lost Leopard Spot]

I'm not surprised at that at all. Bach is a minority taste. I doubt that the average person in the street has ever properly listened to a piece by Bach (not even Sheep may safely...), and I seriously doubt that in a city of ten million people a random selection of passers-by would yield anybody who actually pays to go and listen to Bach.
A more worthwhile experiment would have been to have the violinist playing outside just prior to an actual performance, and see how many people from the would-be audience stopped and listened and endangered missing the start of a concert.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

It is a good story, the full version of which I have read before and is available here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01721.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

He was recognised by one person.

It does raise some interesting questions - Bish has posed some and the article poses others.

Of course some art attracts praise, interest and status because people believe what others say about it. That's been a big part of art for most of its history, and especially in this country's contemporary art of the last 30 years.

Some art, however, is difficult to appreciate without a bit of knowledge or instruction first. I have become obsessed with paintings recently, and I have found that the more I learn, the more I enjoy it. It's difficult to appreciate (and therefore enjoy) innovations in treatment of themes and light without knowing what context it was produced in in terms of the work that preceded and followed it, in my experience. This is not to say that there are not great paintings that will stop someone with no education at all in his tracks.

I suspect much of the above applies to classical music too.

[TANGODANCER]

So does it all not just come back to either liking something or no, regardless of what anyone else thinks, and great art doesn't actually have a definition beyond what each individual sees or hears?

Strolling about in Fuengirola one day I was stopped in my tracks by hearing music. It was Tchaikovsky's Love theme from Romeo and Juliet (not to be confused with the film version). I dragged the wife along and found to my amazement it was being played by a bunch of Andes pan-pipers. It was quite beautiful. Others walked by without stopping or even noticing. People go along to exhibitions, read catalogues and gaze in awe at works of art or hear music. How many stop and admire the same things in fountains and sculptures on public display with no descriptions or fanfares? The violin example is a classic case. People pay good sums to listen to brass band concerts etc, yet hundreds walk by when the same band is playing in a public park for free.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

So does it all not just come back to either liking something or no, regardless of what anyone else thinks, and great art doesn't actually have a definition beyond what each individual sees or hears?

Strolling about in Fuengirola one day I was stopped in my tracks by hearing music. It was Tchaikovsky's Love theme from Romeo and Juliet (not to be confused with the film version). I dragged the wife along and found to my amazement it was being played by a bunch of Andes pan-pipers. It was quite beautiful. Others walked by without stopping or even noticing. People go along to exhibitions, read catalogues and gaze in awe at works of art or hear music. How many stop and admire the same things in fountains and sculptures on public display with no descriptions or fanfares? The violin example is a classic case. People pay good sums to listen to brass band concerts etc, yet hundreds walk by when the same band is playing in a public park for free.

As LLS said, the simple likelihood is that those hundreds walking by are not the same people who pay to go to concerts.

And the sad truth is that there are not many fountains and scultptures worth looking at in the open air these days. Of those that are, they don't go long without being photographed, in my experience.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

I've recently become a member of something on Facebook called 'Artfinder', which emails me a work of art everyday to consider and perhaps comment on.

Today's example is an interesting one in the context of the 'do I need an art degree to appreciate this?' discussion. You will see my comment on this one below it, I think, if you recognise a Bolton surname.

https://www.artfinder.com/story/piet-mo ... tre-c1919/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[thebish]

So does it all not just come back to either liking something or no,

no - I don't think so...

sometimes you need to acquire the "language" in order to fully appreciate/understand something.

you could refuse to do so - and thus not really understand something - and be content not appreciating it - it wouldn't kill you - but I think you do miss out on some things. YES - some things take a bit of work on my part to understand them and then appreciate them...

some stuff I haven't bothered to learn the "language" - like wine... I either like it or I don't - but I don't really understand it and I couldn't really tell you why I like or why I don't - the fault is MINE - I haven't taken the trouble to prepare myself to fully appreciate wine..

the same, I suspect, is true of lots of great art. Such is life - we choose what we put effort into - but I think art (and music to some extent) pays you back for the effort you put into understanding it.

[TANGODANCER]

But didn't you already say a couple of posts ago:

"it is a question often asked (in different ways) on here... Do we only recognise/appreciate beauty/art when someone else gives us "permission" to do so - or when we have been TOLD it is beauty/great art?"

Because I do believe that much of that really is the case. Being coaxed into someone else's views doesn't constitute education, rather compliance. There are no provable facts here, as in science or maths etc where a scenario can be shown as unarguable. Everybody has a basic understanding, however small, of what they like or dislike, or even recognise as appealing in any way. People aren't closing their minds to reality here, just disagreeing with someone's opinion.

To ask someone, "what do you see in this painting?" and they reply, "a blue rectangle!" then all the explanation in the world won't alter the fact that that's what they see, simply because that's what it is. To then claim it's worth millions because of the artist's conception that it's a vision of greatness, will only prove that some people have been brain-washed into thinking they can be educated into thinking otherwise. Who but the artist could explain differently? The only provable fact is that it's a blue rectangle. The rest is an excercise in pure imagination. This isn't closing the mind, just accepting a basic unalterable fact. Some people, granted, seem happy to be hypnotised into seeing the unseeable, some aren't. There is no way of proving who's right or wrong.

[William the White]

There is no way of proving who's right or wrong.

Who wants to do this? A discussion about art is hardly ever likely to involve 'proof'. It is likely to involve discussion, sometimes friendly, sometimes heated, mostly unresolved and, not infrequently, at intellectual daggers drawn...

This is a very good thing. It proves art can stir things up. Excellent.

The point is the process of debate, the discussion, the thinking, the arguing, not the conclusion.

Though, it has to be said, you are rarely willing to debate, and most often keen to rush to the conclusion - inevitably - that the art you don't like is rubbish.

And this list of your 'rubbish' includes Picasso's Guernica... FFS!!! Try to prise the mind open just a little wider... Really... I'm not asking you to 'like' anything, just to open your mind to art beyond the curls of Pre Raph maidens...

[TANGODANCER]

There is no way of proving who's right or wrong.

Who wants to do this? A discussion about art is hardly ever likely to involve 'proof'. It is likely to involve discussion, sometimes friendly, sometimes heated, mostly unresolved and, not infrequently, at intellectual daggers drawn...

This is a very good thing. It proves art can stir things up. Excellent.

The point is the process of debate, the discussion, the thinking, the arguing, not the conclusion.

Though, it has to be said, you are rarely willing to debate, and most often keen to rush to the conclusion - inevitably - that the art you don't like is rubbish.

And this list of your 'rubbish' includes Picasso's Guernica... FFS!!! Try to prise the mind open just a little wider... Really... I'm not asking you to 'like' anything, just to open your mind to art beyond the curls of Pre Raph maidens...

Wow! Well, that's me told off then. Not exactly sure where I said Guernica was rubbish or even made such a list. I'll happily be reminded where I did that. Only thing I can think you refer to is this:

Since "aesthetic" is pertaining to taste or to beauty Will, can I ask you how the same applies to Picasso's "Guernica" ? I almost know you'll tell me it depects the true horror of war, but the bomber command statue is a memorial to those who died that we may all still be here, not how many of them are left. So, in its own way the memorial is just as truthful as the painting, that's admired by millions ,is it not?

My point was that beauty was hardly something I'd apply to that painting. Stark, brutal and yes, truthful in it's portrayal of war, and that was in reply to your war memorial comments. There was no decrying it as an art work at all. If you are asking if I think some art is rubbish, then you know I do. As for debate, it isn't avoiding it, just knowing when I'm going to lose anyway and not prolonging the agony. I'll happily remain amongst the know nowts.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

The architectural part of that monument IS rubbish though.

[thebish]

But didn't you already say a couple of posts ago:

"it is a question often asked (in different ways) on here... Do we only recognise/appreciate beauty/art when someone else gives us "permission" to do so - or when we have been TOLD it is beauty/great art?"

I did - because it is a point that you and others repeatedly make. i thought it might interest you. I did not say it was my opinion though...

I think there are some things that reward effort - and don't necessarily come easily. Art is one of those things - the more you put into it, the more you get out of it.

I am sure that you get a whole lot more out of spanish culture because you have immersed yourself in it and read about it widely - and grappled with the language. I wouldn't expect someone who knows nothing about Spanish history or culture or language to get as much out of a trip to Spain as you would get.

the same, I think, is true of art. the more you take the time and trouble to try to understand - the more you get from it.