Darkwolf said: Art is still seen as decorative, as something "extra,"
Actually, that's been the American attitude towards art since the Puritans arrived. As a cheap Yankee, I have to say the only pieces of art in our house are the ones we inherited and what I make (which rotate quite a bit). Every now and then I buy a new piece. But there are millions of people out there. What is on their walls? Framed museum posters?
Tom Wolfe's writing is wonderful: we do The Painted Word in my Art Criticism class, but quite often students don't get the humor of it.
My feeling is that much of the wilder, crazier (shall we say "Steve Martin"?) art is becoming the academy. There is so much (often awful) installation work around; it's ubiquitous and empty.
My problem with illustration is that it often doesn't reach far into content, or meaning. (Same could be said of the new installation work as well.) Rockwell had some pieces that went deeper than the surface, but often they are amusing and that's about it. There is a love of honest brushwork, since the late 19th century, that has a great deal to do with the "quality" of art. The trouble is, there's a great deal of schlocky brushwork too; and more often than not, viewers don't know the difference.
Part of the problem is the lack of art education. The arts, and education of it, are seen as unnecessary. But the arts are a part of us as humans, and I see it as essential that we learn what was expressed in the past and how to judge the forms and content of it: from Beethoven to Pollock. Then people can make their own informed decisions.
Like Darkwolf, I see a lack of originality. There is nothing more lacking in originality than postmodernism. What an empty, pointless recycling of %#&@, but if supported with like-wise pointless, wordy criticism, collectors will feel intimidated and will probably buy it. And then the Smiths have to buy what the Jones' bought, regardless of how much they like it or how little it means.
Since the camera was invented, I don't have a great love of realistic work that is so busy replicating the "real" world that there are few personal touches within it. I really like abstraction and all its variations on a continuum: from almost "realistic" to completely non-objective (like Mondrain). The possibilities are endless.
I actually think that we may be entering a period of synthesis, much like that of Giotto and Masaccio. It took artists about 100 to understand and move beyond the work of Giotto. Perhaps the same could be said to be true of the early 20th century: from Expressionism and Cubism to Abstract Expressionism.
I hope to see more truly creative abstraction with deeply human content. I see it sometimes in the work of Elizabeth Murray, Anselm Kiefer, Melvin Edwards, Martin Puryear and others.
arkwolf said: Art is still seen as decorative, as something "extra," Actually, that's been the American attitude towards art since the Puritans arrived.
Yes. My point being, that's what the po-mo crowd were rebelling against, and it's something that STILL infects the art schools.
I think the same can be said of any genre of artwork, truthfully. I tend to like illustration, for whatever reason. Of course, it should reflect whatever is being illustrated, but that doesn't necessarily confine it to shallowness.
"Like Darkwolf, I see a lack of originality.
I think that's fairly inevitable at some level, not everyone can invent the wheel. But I notice in figure drawing classes that everyone's work looks very different, even though it's all of the same model, so I also think that originality is pretty much inevitable.
But I also think the stress placed by modern art schools on originality (at the expense of technique) tends to stifle it rather than encourage it, since IMO a solid understanding of a craft can give an individual the freedom to truly attain originality.
"Since the camera was invented, I don't have a great love of realistic work that is so busy replicating the "real" world that there are few personal touches within it.
Here I am on the same page with you, although a lover of "realism," I really don't like the so called photorealism or super realism. Making a painting that looks like a photograph seems pointless. Since the invention of the camera relieved artists of the need for strict "recording" they are free to pursue art in whatever direction appeals to them or to their market. IMO the appeal of "realism" is exactly that everyone's personal realism is different, their own reality is reflected in their work.
Of one thing I'm convinced - no matter where artists move in the next 100 years, if the public doesn't understand it, if it remains confined to the art world, it's value will be questionable. I personally don't see why people won't accept purely abstract work, there is already a fair acceptance by the public of modern stuff. OTOH, I'm fairly certain that there will always be a demand of representational work at some level, people have too much love of images that evoke memories or illustrate things that are important to them. But I do wonder, what with the computer age, 3-D holograms, etc. how long folk will be painting with the 16th century tools and techniques that are still so popular today.
For instance, one doesn't see too many professional hand letterers anymore. This is not to say that the people doing computer graphics are not artists, they are. But I also think everyone can acknowledge that calligraphy done by the human hand has a quality that a computer cannot achieve.
The 2 guys I really despise are Thomas Kincaid "painter of light" and Terry Redlins. I guess their stuff falls into the realism category, but it's nauseating. But the public adores them and has made them both wealthy in the extreme. So I guess, on second thought, the public is going to have to follow along behind the art world. But the art world is going to have to have some good stuff.