"Modern Art" finally exposed to be the fraud that it is!

Where are the impressionists? Where the expressionists?

I agree with you that photorealistic painting is hardly the only worthwhile art form. Indeed, since few painters can produce work even equal to a cheap camera, I think it's appropriate to look in new directions.

I think it's crucial, however, to distinguish between experimental works and art works. That is not to imply that experimental works cannot be artistic, nor vice versa, but there is a big difference between producing a quick work to see whether a new technique has artistic potential versus working to develop and expand upon the new technique.

As a simple illustration, while I don't know the history behind Escher's paintings, it's not hard to imagine him getting the idea for a painting with people walking on both sides of a staircase, taking a pencil, and drawing a quick stick-figure drawing of the necessary perspective. I would not regard that [hypothetical] drawing as being a major work of art, even though it formed the proof of concept for one of Escher's famous engravings. What is important is not the concept (whose potential was discovered in the pencil sketch), but rather its development.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Ideas which can be shown to have potential are worth slightly more. It is only after ideas have been developed that they really take on value.

Thanks for this great post. I need to fill in the "missing years" of my education in "art," especially considering the fact that I'm an illustrator by trade (I won't use the term artist anymore since it is so bastardized). I'm glad that I skipped art school. My instincts were correct.

The paintings here give me something for which to strive.

I LOVE the Hogarth!!!

My favorite are always when a painter can paint more real than real. Hogarth seems to do that. I love the life in his faces!

Thanks for the links!

Great post. As a painter (not the day job, mind you) I paint very realistic work, especially things that have lots of reflections. But there is a sense that if you are not “out there” and ‘edgy’ you are not cool and part of the elite, so to speak.

I visited the Met and MOMA last year. MOMA was the biggest disappointment ever and actually made me slighty angry at what was called art.

My son (16) was totally unimpressed and said “I will scream if we see a canvas that’s all black that passes for art.” So what do you imagine was around the next corner?

There was one installation that was yarn taped to a wall. So he stood there, stroking his chin, walking back and forth and loudly exclaimed, “oh, I feel it! Amazing! This is incredible!” He made his point.

I appreciate this article and point of view but respectfully disagree. I’m not one who denigrates ‘old’ art as ‘derivative’, I rather like it and value it along with ‘modern’ art, but modern art is also justified.

In justifying modern art, there are dozens of possible threads and reasonings to explore, but the most elemental that comes to the forefront of my mind is the fact that humans are both abstract and pragmatic thinkers by nature.

Through our six senses, we take in a beautiful scene, we paint it. Maybe, we even paint the scene with an inspiration from ‘on high’. Yet, humans are gifted with the ability to think abstractly, to use metaphors, to theorize. This is a whole realm that transcends the six senses, and it only follows that there ought to be a type of painting that channels this synthetic thought. It need not be limited to representational, ‘realistic’ painting, as our thoughts and reasonings aren’t necessarily realistic and rarely have concrete ‘form’ to them.

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