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To: Clemenza; Sam Cree; JoeSixPack

Art appreciation is an intellectual exercise, particularly in the discussion---or debate---over an artist's works.


As for Pollock, Picasso, and so on, my view is that it's not so much what's on the canvas, but how one feels when one looks at it, and what it says about the culture----coupled with the artist's unspoken contribution to stimulating the ensuing dialogue.


83 posted on 05/16/2005 5:05:55 AM PDT by Liz (A society of sheep must, in time, beget a government of wolves. Bertrand de Jouvenal)
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To: Liz
. . . it's not so much what's on the canvas, but how one feels when one looks at it, and what it says about the culture . . .

This is where you and I part company.

Characterizing or evaluating art on the basis of an individual, subjective emotional reaction is analogous to the liberal notion that what IS or what is DONE is not important, it's just how you FEEL. What that winds up meaning is that there are no standards of craftsmanship or technical facility, just "art is whatever you can get away with."

It's irreproducible, unverifiable, and (forgive me) about 99 and 94/100ths B.S. And I cannot agree that it is "art" in any true sense. Divorcing feeling and intellect from the basic craftsmanship that traditionally forms the basis of "art" is what got us into all this ultra-pseudo-intellectual mess in the first place.

You have a bunch of jurors, mostly located in NYC and LA, who award money that isn't theirs to artists based on "standards" that are tied to absolutely nothing but the jurors' own high opinions of themselves and their associates in their rarified circles. It's incestuous, it's totally unrelated to any standard of the good, the true, or the beautiful, and it's IMNSHO a complete waste of federal and foundation money.

86 posted on 05/16/2005 6:31:59 AM PDT by AnAmericanMother (. . . Ministrix of ye Chace (recess appointment), TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary . . .)
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