(no subject)
Maybe I'm biased against Picasso's later works, but. While reading the wiki on Les Demoiselles d'Avignon just now, one of the contributors mentioned an article whereby the painting was described as the most influential painting of the 20th century.
They claimed that he discovered so and so about colour, about form and etc, but is that really true? Did he set out to do what they thought he wanted to do, or was he just mucking around? It's not the first time that people have ascribed nobler motives to an artist's work than the artist intended.
I remember talking to a friend, who'd talked to Royston Tan before. He asked her what she thought of the film. She said she got the feeling that at some point she felt that he didn't know what he was doing despite the fact that the critics were praising some particular section like nobody's business. He said that yeah, he really didn't know what he was doing, he just went with whatever worked.
So. Yes. Despite my lecturers always telling me to look for the motive behind the work, sometimes I just can't be bothered to ascribe anything to them because I don't feel that the artist had any real thought or purpose behind it in the first place.
And on that tangent, I wonder. What makes great art great? Skill is obviously one factor, as is the theory, but what else? Why is van Gogh so venerated and Dou Rong Jun a virtual unknown? (Dou is an artist whose work I spotted at the Ode to Art gallery. If not for that homework assignment last year, I would never have known who he was, and god, his painting is amazing.)
What makes Fra Fillipo all but forgotten and his contemporary, Botticelli so well-known still? And look at all the amazing concept artists who are working today, in all the various studios. Just look at ConceptArt. How many of these people will be remembered in the years to come for their work?
Edit: Oh yeah, there's this other artist I saw on my last visit to the gallery. |D His name is Chen Wen Ling and he has a hilarious way of snarking about the latest US financial crisis. Here is one of his works. Another one consists of the same dude and the same bull, escaping towards the sky, also propelled by the bull's fart. I don't even.
They claimed that he discovered so and so about colour, about form and etc, but is that really true? Did he set out to do what they thought he wanted to do, or was he just mucking around? It's not the first time that people have ascribed nobler motives to an artist's work than the artist intended.
I remember talking to a friend, who'd talked to Royston Tan before. He asked her what she thought of the film. She said she got the feeling that at some point she felt that he didn't know what he was doing despite the fact that the critics were praising some particular section like nobody's business. He said that yeah, he really didn't know what he was doing, he just went with whatever worked.
So. Yes. Despite my lecturers always telling me to look for the motive behind the work, sometimes I just can't be bothered to ascribe anything to them because I don't feel that the artist had any real thought or purpose behind it in the first place.
And on that tangent, I wonder. What makes great art great? Skill is obviously one factor, as is the theory, but what else? Why is van Gogh so venerated and Dou Rong Jun a virtual unknown? (Dou is an artist whose work I spotted at the Ode to Art gallery. If not for that homework assignment last year, I would never have known who he was, and god, his painting is amazing.)
What makes Fra Fillipo all but forgotten and his contemporary, Botticelli so well-known still? And look at all the amazing concept artists who are working today, in all the various studios. Just look at ConceptArt. How many of these people will be remembered in the years to come for their work?
Edit: Oh yeah, there's this other artist I saw on my last visit to the gallery. |D His name is Chen Wen Ling and he has a hilarious way of snarking about the latest US financial crisis. Here is one of his works. Another one consists of the same dude and the same bull, escaping towards the sky, also propelled by the bull's fart. I don't even.
