Posted on 05/23/2014 5:13:41 PM PDT by windcliff
Speaking as an artist myself, I would like to add a bit to the “Illustration vs Fine Art” discussion.
Illustration done well is a wonderful expression of art. Good illustrators are often more successful financially than are fine artists. Here is the difference as I see it. Illustrations are designed to tell a story. The story should be quickly understandable and easy to see. It should be evocative - eliciting emotions such as nostalgia, sentimentality etc…
A work of fine art should also be evocative, but the story should be a bit more hard to read. For instance, in your mind picture two famous paintings… “Nighthawks” by Edward Hopper and the Norman Rockwell painting of the boy going off to college sitting with his dad and the family dog. The Rockwell painting is beautiful and tells a quickly readable story. We love the nostalgic feelings it brings forth. The Hopper painting, on the other hand, is more mysterious and timeless. It elicits a different feeling that perhaps changes over time as we mature.
Good distinction.
In no way could you apply your "concrete objective measures" from one artist to another, or from one movement to another. And since you clearly can't do that, your "concrete objective measures are neither concrete, or objective. In fact, many artists and artistic movements made a direct point of rejecting the standards and aesthetics of the movements that preceded them; so how could your "measures" possibly be of any use in defining art? Please apply your "measures of artistic excellence" to Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" and explain why a commercially-produced urinal is regarded by many critics as a "landmark" in 20th century art - critics whose opinion you would have us defer to regarding what is, or is not, Art.
"Some opinions are more valued and therefore more valid than others. For instance, people who know the field and therefore know what they’re talking about, rather than an accountant or a real estate agent."
Opinions "more valued" by whom? And we're not talking about accounting principals, or real estate law, subjects that require detailed and specific knowledge (and actually do have objective measures), we're talking about what is, or is not "Art" - a subject, which, by it's very nature has an appeal to people from all backgrounds and fields of expertise. If you have to defer to a group of self-selected "experts" to explain it, it isn't art.
"Rockwell’s biggest problem was that he was a commercial artist producing vast amounts of thematically similar work, work that veered too far into cartoonish for the more conservative art critics who deemed his work to not be serious art."
Rockwell was a commercial artist who worked for clients - if some of his work was thematically similar, it was because that was what the clients wanted. It was no different from any Renaissance artist you care to name working for the clergy or the nobility - a whole lot of "thematically similar" work was produced by those hacks /s. As for "producing vast amounts of thematically similar work" there was this critically-acclaimed guy, you may have heard of, named Andy Warhol. Feel free to expound on his artistic genius. You've also described some of Rockwell's work as "cartoonish" - Rockwell used humor in much of his work, a perfectly valid emotion to appeal to, just as valid as any other emotion an artist might try to use.
"Sounds to me as if you just “like” Norman Rockwell for sentimental reasons and because it’s pretty. Furthermore, you’ve become fixated upon some stereotypical image of an art critic based upon the admittedly very political northeastern art establishment that foisted off a fair amount of deliberately offensive junk as art..."
Like Winslow Homer before him, Rockwell's roots were in commercial art, but to suggest that that disqualified him from being great is ludicrous. Rockwell is not a particular favorite of mine, but I absolutely respect his artistic abilities, and I find the opinions of those, like you, who denigrate the man and his artistic efforts, quite tiresome. It's even more offensive when you repeatedly rely on the opinions of "art critics" as a justification for why Rockwell isn't really an artist when those very same critics acclaim other "artists" producing dog crap (sometimes literally).
The stereotypical northeastern art critics are precisely the ones who are defining what supposedly constitutes "art" today, which is precisely why I reject their opinions. I've seen what they like and promote. And for the record: I have a degree in Studio Art, work as a graphic artist and I've taken more art history classes than I care to remember.
My goodness, what a screed. Go shake your fist and yell at clouds over the unfairness of it all.
If I were to follow your lead, there would of necessity be no objective measure of beauty or truth. And yet it’s you who believe yourself to be capable of rendering such an assessment.
It appears that you’re carrying over some internal, mental debate with someone else who’s gotten under your skin, perhaps someone who deems your commercial art unworthy of a gallery. I suggest you take it up with them.
Regarding Warhol, I suggest you peruse the thread and get back to me.
Now, take d e e p breaths, back away slowly and go to your happy place. It’ll get better, I promise.
I would recommend going to the Norman Rockwell Museum in western MA. There’s a terrific collection of his art, the museum and surroundings are beautiful, and the docents really know their stuff.
Your psychological analyses are almost as insightful and accurate as your artistic ones.
Whatever put a bee in your little bonnet certainly wasn’t acquired via reading comprehension.
Every so often I’ll run across a page showing IQs of the rich & famous. Recently I noticed one that reported Warhol to have a very low IQ which I found hard to believe. Do you know if there’s any truth to that?
***But most of it is dark, moody, verging upon demonic.***
You mean like his drawings for ORLANDO FURIOSO. Very surreal.
Can’t help you on that.
In my humble experience, the preferred forms of creative work never develop routine qualities — prolonged exposure to the best work is often demanding, not becoming routine nor imperceptible.
In reference to his being shot by Valerie Solanas in 1968:
“Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there – I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in the movies is unreal, but actually it’s the way things happen to you in life that’s unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it’s like watching television – you don’t feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it’s all television.”
He might have been putting everybody on, really pretty likely that he was, but one thing he wasn't, was stupid.
>> but one thing he wasn’t, was stupid.
Evidently, given your quotes. Thanks!
BTW, I’m not sure there’s a direct correlation between stupidity and IQ.
But, I prefer his Biblically oriented works. The almost modern sense of surreality is still there and it's still somewhat dark, but without the demonic feel that comes through so strongly elsewhere.
He was an actual painter of actual art, no wonder he’s been excoriated for so long.
It reminds a body of Lawrence Alma-Tadema, one of the Victorian era painters in Britain (although he was Dutch), like so many of his contemporaries he painted with almost photographic realism, but drew on classical Roman and Greek mythology and history, among other things. One of his large works, still in frame, “On the Finding of Moses” (I think that’s the title) was being thrown out as trash, literally, and someone passing by picked it up off the curb and sold it at an antique store.
Alan Funt, for those who remember “Candid Camera”, happened by, immediately fell in love with it, bought the work, and spend years collecting the artist’s by-now long-neglected works and researching his life. Later on Funt got hung out to dry by a financial manager, owed loads of unpaid bills and back taxes and fines, and had to liquidate his entire collection — but arranged with a gallery to have an all-Alma-Tadema exhibition for the first time in at least 75 years.
It jump-started interest in the work, the auction went well, and Funt was saved from prison and lifted from debt (and wound up flat broke, but no longer in the hole, if memory serves).
Norman Rockwell, “the Four Freedoms”:
http://stamp-search.com/images/ant0336sh-the4freedoms.jpg
Alma-Tadema, “Finding of Moses”
http://uploads7.wikiart.org/images/alma-tadema-lawrence/the-finding-of-moses-1904.jpg
The pin-up artists like Gil Elvgren and Vargas were also great, but their works were found in magazines (usually *not* on the cover), and while sometimes clever, and usually amusing, and always stimulating, they lacked range. Another “just an illustrator” was Maxfield Parrish; he was brushed off as trivial, but lived so long (died at 95, nearly 96 yrs) that he saw not only a revival of interest in his work, but saw it being taken seriously as well. Basically, Rockwell’s mistake was in taking *critics’ opinions* too seriously.
Nice! :’)
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