[andy58-in-nh]

I do love the French impressionists and post-impressionists (Monet, Degas, Manet, Seurat, Renoir). But I also became a big fan of the American Realist school, including the work of Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer.

Abstract expressionism never did anything for me. Picasso's earlier work was informed by post-Impressionism and still bore some resemblance to life. He remained enormously creative and sensitive to life experience, even as his craft devolved into Cubist boxes and tortured human forms.

Jackson Pollack, on the other hand, always struck me as a gigantic fraud whose work was routinely equaled at any 1960s Boardwalk "spin-your-own-abstract-painting" booth for five bucks.

[FatherofFive]

Abstract expressionism never did anything for me.

And the same thing for classical music. Nothing good has been written for at least 100 years. Everything is about pitch and tone. None of the brilliance of a Beetoven or Mozart, or Vivaldi.