"For me I think "art" has been hijacked by people with no talent."
I believe you are both correct; however, I'd go back a little over 75 years. While I generally appreciate Impressionist art, it is also generally responsible for introducing the values of rebellion, shock and innovation to the art community. Up until the mid 19th Century, most if not all high art in the Western world was purely representational and the only "innovation" that was appreciated were those techniques and media which could add to the realism of a piece. Beginning with the impressionists a trend developed toward increasingly abstract, non-representational art. Some of it did have a driving credo with an intent an purpose and were generally executed by artists with a well developed foundation in the traditions of art. For example Cubism began as an effort on the part of Braque and Picasso to render multiple perspectives of an object on a two dimensional surface. Both men were exceptional artists and understood the traditions they were growing out of. As increasingly abstract art became accepted, the talentless with no grounding in the classical traditions (other than perhaps P.T. Barnum) were able to justify pieces of absolute garbage.
My passion is medieval art, manuscript illumiination, calligraphy, etc. I have given presentations to Bible studies and other groups regarding signs and symbols in Christian art. When I do this, I draw a graph with the X (horizontal) axis starting with the year 1 AD on the left through 2000 on the far right. The Y-axis (vertical) on the left is literacy percentage, going from 0 - 100 (bottom to top). In western civilization, the first 3/4 of the graph (from 1 AD - app. 1500 AD) the percentage is extremely low as reading and writing were the exclusive domain of clerics and nobles. After the Gutenburg press (1453 AD) facilitated the reproduction and dissemination of the written word there is a gentle upslope, and as western society placed an increasing value on economic freedom, and the industrialization of society allowed for wider education and Enlightenment ideals started to manifest themselves, there is an increasingly sharp rise as you move toward the present day.
The reason I do this is to illustrate how few people throughout western history have been able to draw anything from the written word: The vast majority of their input was through a well developed visual vocabulary, and in a Christian context, this means iconography and the representation of Biblical events which communicated the lessons within. Go to a medieval village in Burgundy or the Rheinland. Not a single person in the village (other than the priest) could read Genesis. Most would probably not understand Genesis if it were read to them in Latin. All but the blind would identify and intimately understand the stained glass window depicting a man, a woman a snake and an apple.
In the present day, about all that is communicated through modern art is the artist's incompetence and the collector's gullibility.
hi all,
i just wanted to comment on this even though i know the thread is dead and gone. i wanted to talk about something that is really important to me personally; the relationship between young modern art and being conservative.
i can completely understand why alot of modern art turns conservative people off. it is the domain of very pretentious people, it often shows no obvious proof of talent and it is completely saturated with leftists.
and i also cant begin to tell you how isolated i feel in this crowd with the conservative beliefs that i have!
but to me, the most important thing is that we are losing this culture war, and one of the most effective ways to influence young people is through art; modern art, trendy art and pop-art. its just a fact. these people have ENORMOUS influence on youth culture. i wish there was a conservative group that funded art targeting this demographic and that i could find fellow conservatives interested in funding projects. i would especilly like to meet conservative artists. film and video works are extremely popular right now and i dont even think there is a presence among conservative artists in this area. when you think of where the money comes from, its mainly only left wing groups interested in funding;they know that the money they spend reaches lot of young people. organizations that fund the arts gets regular newspaper coverage through the openings thhat are covered in the press.
i just wish that i could explain this problem more thoroughly. i see a really big opportunity and would like to know if there are any other people out there who feel the same way and are frustrated by this complete domination by the liberals of all the arts institutes, small galleries and centers of arts and culture.
i really respect more traditonal forms of art. i also believe that we cant forget about the more experimental areas of art that we're way way way behind in. cant we combine the traditions we so respect with the modern technology and the excitement that is just a sign of our times? i dunno. i would really appreciate your feeback on this.
very best
-e