[Jason Manley]

that was well said muzman...I appreciate the interesting perspective and analogy. I agree with what you said as it was so well put.

I simply tried to illustrate the greatness and place of willim bouguereaus works...to show why his works are great...even if the subject matter is too sweet and buttery for some.

I would like to see if you can find some comparible "archetecture" as you might call it...from contemporary artists....find something that equals bouguereau in use of figure and share it with us...how many such works will you be able to find?? if you find one will you find 600 or even 100 others from that same artist? heheheh

I appreciate your honesty in your response in that you said you had no time or inclination to match. if you had that inclination...and would take the time to do so then your words about the ugly bridge would be sung with different notes entirely. not only would you develop your ability to see but your art would get better too. you said in your post that you want to be able to do digital images of quality..to learn from him...well this is what I would call an "opportunity' to do so.

I never liked that traditional stuff much when I was first starting out either..I liked darker images..more gloomy...more deep in mood...after about my fourth semester of life drawing I had an entirely different perspective as the genius of painters like that became very clear to me.

The same could be said of the expressionist artists as bouguereau in regards to my understanding of what they did...my appreciation for them came even later and only after I started pushing mood and shape in my own works.

I did think you might be up to the challenge I issued. take it on...if you do you can call it an educational experience. not only that...but drawing one of your younger friends or relatives for more than a few hours will be a good excersize of your ability to understand what you see. when you are finished with your piece..look at those bouguereaus again. I dare ya...hehehe


jason

I dubble dare ya! you dont even have to show it to us.


ps...how might you have handled that same subject matter differently but still communicate the same ideas? what would you have done to that image to make it a greater work of art?

[ October 29, 2001: Message edited by: Jason Manley ]

[Sumaleth]

I've read a number of articles on that site, and while they're all very well written and I agree with them almost entirely, I do think that they are going so far in their rejection of modern art than they have become the very thing they complain about; dimissive simply because they do not like.

Now I'm not real fond of modern art, but that's because my personal tastes learn towards 'representational' forms of art. Modern art is based more in the 'design' forms.

All forms of art should be considered of equal worth, but on an individual level we should be free to like and create whatever we want to like and create.

Row.

[Steven Stahlberg]

Being prolific is no measure of an artist, I don't rightly know what it's a measure of, but it's not talent. As long as he or she makes at least 2 great pieces, so I know the first one wasn't a fluke, better if I can judge 5 or even 10, to tell the persons level of talent. But looking at 600 is just overkill.

I'm prolific. I used to work 15 hour days 7 days a week doing illustrations, some of them big oilpaintings, but all sizes and techniques were fair game. I did this for over 10 years, only taking occasional and short vacations. I used to sometimes work on 6 different clients' projects at the same time. I could knock out a big detailed airbrush in a week or two, depending on how many other projects I had going. I was making 10k - 15k a month net for a while there. Did that make me a better artist than all other artists in the world that were not creating that much? Nope.

I must say a talent I admire more than rendering what is before the artist extremely well, is rendering what is NOT before the artist extremely well. I mean the power to create things without reference. I certainly have very little of this, someone who has lots of it is Adam Hughes. His convention sketches, done in minutes, are better than anything I could hope to do with reference. Admittedly he has practised and remembers images he has previously created, but still.. these sketches are so varied and imaginative and so bloody GOOD it's just mind boggling.

[Jason Manley]

I agree that being prolific does not make you a great artist...but a great artist who is prolific is completely worthy of respect. It is extremely difficult to be consistant at that level. most artists are fortunate if they get a few good pieces. Hell..Id be happy with just one.

I agree that working from imagination is a challenging and respectable talent. I do the majority of my work without any reference but when I first started I could not do that at all...I had to work from life or from photos for the most part. I can appreciate both sides because of my attempts at both sides. Being a good competent artist is more than a tough pursuit...being a great artist...wow...now that would take some hard work and dedication!

I respect artists who reach heights of within their chosen path. It takes integrity, perseverance, dedication, education, openmindedness, experience and many other quality traits to become masterful. The more work an artist at that level produces the more I get to enjoy. I respect that too.


jason

[Anthony]

I've seen but a handful of Boogy's paintings in person, and I like them in person, and only somewhat like them on the web(how's that for a middle of the road opinion? :] ). They do impress very much in person, they really do glow. The effect is even greater with Leonardo's paintings. I've literally stood staring at Ginevra Di Becci for four hours straight, walked around, come back, and then go back the next day, when I was in Washington DC. All the more impressive since his paints are generally small. Rubens impresses in person via the sheer size of his paintings(well, besides being a master). Paint paint, and forget the worries, they just bother people. ;]

[Muzman]

Just a lil reply before it slides. They are curiously fun these talks.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jason Manley:
I would like to see if you can find some comparible "archetecture" as you might call it...from contemporary artists....find something that equals bouguereau in use of figure and share it with us...how many such works will you be able to find?? if you find one will you find 600 or even 100 others from that same artist? heheheh

---

heh, although this is interesting (and I have read the stuff about him. Not a lot, but some. No more than any other artist) I'll continue to pursue, as I call it "art what I likes 'cause I like it" then try and figure out why I feel what I do about it. The other way would feel like some sort of technical accountancy.

quote

Quote:

I appreciate your honesty in your response in that you said you had no time or inclination to match. if you had that inclination...and would take the time to do so then your words about the ugly bridge would be sung with different notes entirely. not only would you develop your ability to see but your art would get better too.

I'm not sure my analogy took. Just to make sure I'll use another similar one. A friend of mine is a chef. I don't like everything he cooks (he doesn't like everything he cooks!), but I know the startling array of knowledge and experince he has. Although as I rule I like knowledge and would like to know what he knows and to do what he does, on occasion. But I don't really want to be a cook (or a civil engineer). I've got other things to do. My concentration is broadly spread. So I'll have to make do with whatever I can pick up inbetween. If that means I can't do what he does (at least, not any time soon), so be it. I doubt his food would taste better if I were a chef as well. His achievements might be more apparent to me if I had taken the same road, but since I'm not going to it is moot. That's life. There's no way of telling if me trying to be a chef would alter my taste in food. Too many variables.

quote:

---

you said in your post that you want to be able to do digital images of quality..to learn from him...well this is what I would call an "opportunity' to do so.

---

Aye. I find such opportunities (to observe those better than me at something and see what they have done) are not few.

quote:

---

I never liked that traditional stuff much when I was first starting out either..I liked darker images..more gloomy...more deep in mood...after about my fourth semester of life drawing I had an entirely different perspective as the genius of painters like that became very clear to me.
The same could be said of the expressionist artists as bouguereau in regards to my understanding of what they did...my appreciation for them came even later and only after I started pushing mood and shape in my own works.

---

I do wonder if this story was brought on by some guessing at my tastes. If so it's pretty far off the mark. If you're just recounting some experience...uhh, forget I said anything

quote:

---

I did think you might be up to the challenge I issued. take it on...if you do you can call it an educational experience. not only that...but drawing one of your younger friends or relatives for more than a few hours will be a good excersize of your ability to understand what you see. when you are finished with your piece..look at those bouguereaus again. I dare ya...hehehe

---

Good advice though this is, I have been paying attention since I've been hanging out here. Cheers though. You know what they say, don't work with kids or animals. I don't think I could find enough glue to keep one of my young relies in place for that long.

quote:

---

ps...how might you have handled that same subject matter differently but still communicate the same ideas? what would you have done to that image to make it a greater work of art?

---

no idea. Generally if a work doesn't grab me after a while it is thrown on a metaphoric pile of resources until I get that "now were have I seen that before?" feeling when I'm doing something and then go check out how someone good did it. And such things are always minutiae like a foot or a hand or clouds. There's very few pictures I keep around to marvel at for their sheer affectiveness as a single thing.
It would be a good exercise to think about this. Much as it is good for a debater/lawyer type to argue for the opposite position to their own. But the answer to "what, hypothetically, would you do different that would improve this Bougeurau picture in your estimation?" is generally "I wouldn't". Not to mention, If I had a good knowledge of how to "push the right buttons consistently" at an artistic level, well, I'd be The Man wouldn't I. Since I'm not the question then becomes "Why don't I like this insanely detailed picture of jesus/whatever?". Worth thinking about, for sure. And, as I was saying at the start sorta, I do.

[wayfinder]

i feel like a complete barbarian for asking this, but why do all the people in the bouguereau paintings you linked to look so much alike? is there a special spiritual reason behind that, or was that the fashion of the days, or whatever?

i just wanted to say one other thing: please don't feel personally offended when someone doesn't like the same things at you.

[Jason Manley]

muzman...we have wandered far off topic..maybe its best to have another topic on art appreciation...but I will say this...bouguereau made those images of children, drawing them while they moved around at play and such...they would hardly sit still for him. there are notes and sketchbooks left behind that suggest how he constructed his images. what you are telling me is that you cant make time to draw your relatives or friends because they wont sit still...do you see..that is one of the things that makes bouguereau a great artist...it is his ability to contstruct images of utmost realism while working from his own notes and sketches and anatomical understanding...he could paint anything he wanted. anything. I do not always like his subject matter (or recipes as you might call them) but I always enjoy his gifts...his ability to paint to a level that most, if not all of us, will ever attain is worthy of my respect.

I only suggested some ways of learning to appreciate what it is that you do not understand (the technical accountancy as you call it) I also suggest ways for you to become a better artist in the same times (working from children and moving things). you are a bit resistant to these kinds of things but they will help you a lot.

analyzation of art makes a more well rounded artist.

I will leave my contribution to this discussion at that...when you have done those things I suggest...heheh...lets talk.

wayfinder...I do not think anyone here is personally offended. I think we are actually enjoying a passionate exchange of ideas...I am to say the least. I am learning some things from this and muzmans analogies have helped me to understand a different perspective.

as far as your question goes...about bouguereaus style of people...take a look at michealangelo..take a look at raphael..take a look at Ingres work etc..in that you will find many similarities among the people they paint..or draw...it is simply a case of classical ideals..each artist had their own (facial measurements...body lengths...proportions etc..) That was his idea of the romantic beautification of his people...this kind of thinking spawned other art movements as well. (see the works of Dagnan Bouveret and the russian realists who painted everyday common people) It is a choice of style and ideals.

see you in the other threads...


jason manley


here is an interesting section of the article linked below that pertains to some of this discussion.

"Bouguereau's Italian model-women are instructed to bring their infant offspring, their tiny sisters and brothers, and the progeny of their highly prolific quarter. Once in the studio, the little human frogs are undressed and allowed to roll around on the floor, to play, to quarrel, and to wail in lamentation. They dirty up the room a great deal -- they bring in a great deal of dirt that they do not make. They are neither savory nor aristocratic nor angelic, these brats from the embryo-land of Virgil. But out of them the artist makes his capital. Sketchbook in hand, he records their movements as they tumble on the floor; he draws the curves and turns of their aldermanic bodies, and he counts the creases of fat on their plump thighs as Audubon counted the scales on the legs of his humming-birds."7

At times Bouguereau was obliged to use sculptural sources. J. Carroll Beckwith wrote:


"Entering Bouguereau's studio one morning, before he had come up from his breakfast, I was studying with interest a large canvas half completed, representing a group of laughing children with a donkey [see cat. no. 72]. A gaudily attired Italian woman was endeavoring to pacify a curly-headed cherub, the model for the morning, who was ruthlessly rubbing his dirty fingers over some exquisite pencil drawings which lay on the floor at the foot of the easel. I rescued the drawings, while the mother apologetically explained to me in Neapolitan French that M. Bouguereau spoiled all of her children so that she could do nothing with them at home or elsewhere. The drawings were beautiful reproductions of the Laughing Faun in the sculpture gallery of the Louvre. As Bouguereau entered the room, he began a series of frolics with the youngster which quite verified the words of the mother. [When be stopped] at last to set his palette, I asked him when he had made the drawings. "Oh, you see, that mauvais sujet is so wicked", said he, pointing to the curly-headed urchin turning somersaults on the floor, "that I can use him for nothing but color and was obliged to spend nearly all of yesterday afternoon at the Louvre, making these notes for the form."

http://www.artrenewal.org/museum/b/Bouguereau_William/mark_walker.html

[Muzman]

Where you got the idea that I am "resistant", based on what I've said, I can't work out. The point about the children painting, you were asking me to try what he does. I said it would be very difficult in general and for me in particular. Surely that suggests some appreciation on my part of what went onto the picture.
The man's skill hasn't been questioned here, that I can see. What we're left with is the persistently variable and often indefinable thing they call taste.

[worthless_meat_sack]

What part does technique and productivity play in artistic worth? There is no answer, and I think that Jason values it more than others.

Speaking personally, I kind of fight against that thinking in my own work. It will swallow you whole. I went down the same path with Sargent that Jason went with the Big B. It will run you mad.

Actually, I am often accused of the same thing. "Nice matte shot dude, but where's the soul?"

There is a lot of jealousy of Bouguereau and his Technique. The easiest method of attack is to say "technique does not make art. It is then up to everyone else to figure out the motives behind that statement. Is it that art is loftier than mere paint pushing or is it jealousy? The tough part is that it can be both.

Technically speaking, take a look at the miniatures in the Norton Simon or the Getty in LA. I have never seen the likes of it.

And as far as no one here approaching Bouguereau's work, there is this:

Looks pretty good to me.

[Dark Goblinking]

I think that, even though I haven't personally participated in these forums lately, I can express my most honorific appraisals to painters of our olden times. They are the ones whom we cannot compete with. They had the glory, they died with it, and thus will eternally possess it.

Back in the age of monarchy, painters were mainly portraitists, and thus were left with no choice but the master the medium. But since then, revolutions occurred, where all the monarchy was hanged or decapitated, because they were all undoubtedly evil, selfishly selfish and wickedly wicked, for the glory of freedom and equality, in which are two opposing facts, where freedom promotes the value of individual striving, while the other prevents individual striving because it wouldn't be equal.

Back in monarchic times, if you were born rich, you would die rich, no doubt about it. People didn't live with the painstaking thought of one day losing what they had. In today's modern world, where everyone has to substantiate for their own role in society, one cannot devote his entire life to their passions, since society would take away his money (ie: means of survival) because he wouldn't be doing anything to help it, thus society won't help him.

Nowadays, you have museums filled with paintings of such horrifying crap you want to puke. (Although I always love browsing around the small traditional section!) If I see a red dot on a white canvas, I think to myself, "What the hell is that doing here." Then you read a little 200-page book next to the painting on 'Why' it's there, you think, "Why do we have to infinitely justify why this painting deserves to be shown in a museum?" When all you'd have to say is "Strip this man of his license to make art and throw him in jail where his flagrant ignorance won't mentally disrupt the conscience of our children."

A throbbing hate is growing towards classical things, such as art and music. In art, you have all these fancy names to differentiate millions of styles, whereas the same thing in music. Although having a style can be a very beautiful and unique thing, having one is 98% of the time a too easy way out of criticism. "I think your painting looks like utter crap.." - "That's what I was aiming for." - "You were aiming for crap?" - "My style exactly."

Let's have another look at the situation by relating art and slavery (not of black people but of anyone). If you'd ask someone on the street, "Are you for or against the fact of making slavery legal?", there is no chance anybody would say yes. Why won't they? Not because slavery is evil, or bad, but because they have a gut feeling that's telling them they don't want to be slaves. They gained their equality, and humans will grasp onto it like there is no tomorrow. Let's face it, your average computer generated techno slop with 'beat' is nothing more than a computer interpreting your random keypresses at a perfect rhythm. All the hundreds of years spent on the beauty of composing for an orchestra where 20-30 people would sit and play harmoniously for a huge audience with no amplifiers and sheer beautiful sound is simply all thrown out the window by a techno-generating machine the size of a cat. Evolution?

People would regard old style art as being boring, soul-less and too technical. The thing they have yet to know is that it takes a certain level of intellect to distinguish those aspects in art. What they're doing is not putting themselves over others, but bringing everyone below them, which is easier and leads to the same result. I used to like doing abstract revolutionary stuff, but I ended up realizing that it was simply my classmates that liked it and that they're just a bunch of ignorant pricks and that art has a foundation much deeper than brainless appraisals given by John Doe.

If you're upset after reading this, well you can suck my tiny little balls.

[wayfinder]

hahahah aren't we a bitter little man?

[Jason Manley]

meat sack....

I agree...technique does not make art...take a look at www.gandygallery.com for proof of that hehehe...so many nicely painted bad paintings...some masterful ones too..but you will see what I mean. ..bouguereau does have soul in his work..that is the goal..sould and communication are what makes technical pieces masterpieces...

that bouguereau rip off....sorry craig..not even close...that is clumsy and heavy handed in comparison..not to mention harsh and lacking Mr B's subtlety...that would be the worst image in his portfolio I think...that is exactly the argument I present..its about looking closely. it reminds me of bouguereuas last works though..the ones after 1903 or so...when he was going blind. take a look at the images of his on artrenewal that are after 1902-3 if you want to see....

disclaimer: (that is a damn good painting regardless...my oils are not so good as that...but my argument is in comparison to Bouguereaus imagery)

but..like I said before...great art has many things that make it great...not just a single aspect of it...

every great musician plays the scales at one time or another right?? well traditional art education is like that..mastering the technical early allows for stronger works later in life. I know you feel the same craig...I have seen the great stuff you are having the artists do with that white on white still life setup.

jason

ps...do any of you have any images painted by Jenny Seville? she paintes grotesque figures ala lucien freud...if ya do..pleeeze email me some...or post them...she is friggen amazing. probably the best young figure painter around right now....

j

[ November 11, 2001: Message edited by: Jason Manley ]

[shinji69]

I visited that website. The paintings are technically superb, but I don't see any 'point'. Indeed look souless to me, too.

[Anthony]

Well Jason, wouldn't you agree that a large part of there not being as many masterful paintings nowadays is related in large part to the fact that people don't spend the time and energy thinking and planning and then working on a piece? The soul of a picture, its point, comes from the energy and feeling and thought of the artist. I think people tend to just paint pictures. Craig paints landscapes, alien technology, beautiful stuff. You paint characters, buildings, and landscapes too, and again beautiful stuff. What was the last painting you planned out in detail for a month or two and spent 6 months or more painting? As far as I'm concerned it's the message that makes a painting, that includes the soul, and can include the technicaly prowess. Not everything needs perfect rendering to get its point across-in fact some things are perhaps better done without good rendering. Try to do a child's sketch, something fresh and whimsical, and it's significantly harder for you than for a child. I want to be technically good, it's like a game. I want to be able to convey messages effectively. But I couldn't discount someone who communicated well without concerning himself with traditional art theory. Eh?

[worthless_meat_sack]

Yes, I admire Ms Seville's art as well.

It is kinda a conundrum. How do you become a "better" artist? If you study your cubes and anatomy and perspective, does is guarantee anything? Nope. So what is one to do? Sit around trying to "express" harder?

Maybe that is why people talk of talent. it never occured before. I am a little dense.

But whether or not a painting has "soul" is a fully subjective thing.

Yes, that gandy gallery does underscore how good the academics were. It makes me sad to look at that stuff for some reason. It is hollow, dried out non-critical imitation of what was to me great art. I admire comic books more, and I don't even like comic books..

edit, me and my spell checker, my spell checker and me, we are as happy as speel checkers can be...

[ November 12, 2001: Message edited by: worthless_meat_sack ]

[Painted Melody]

Strange Saville is mentioned, I was searching for her just a matter of days ago (as I love Freud)
http://www.geocities.com/craigsjursen/jennysaville.html

Bio: http://www.eyestorm.com/saatchi/biography_saville.asp

Example:



Jeremy

[ November 12, 2001: Message edited by: Painted Melody ]

[Jason Manley]

shin...take a look at what I wrote...what I was trying to say is that good technical paintings dont necissarily make good art...and there are many images on that site that illustrate that point...but also there are some good ones on there...nelson shanks is friggen awesome...one of a handful of oil painters who can do that...there are others as well..but on the whole they are pretty dry over there.

meatsack...your question about teaching someone the basics and then feeling stuck on expressing...well to me it has to do with personal experiences...a writer friend of mine would find his inspirations and points of view from his life in general...from his life experiences...I remember seeing him one night...way out in the desert of phoenix at a summer solstice drum celebration...he had immersed himself in the surroundings and in the intensity of the rythms and dancing...in the firelight...in the darkness of the desert sky...he drank the place in...he absorbed it...he took in as much as his mind and soul would allow...observing...feeling...making mental notes...being completely subjective and being objective.... twas his well of ideas and inspirations...he was keeping it full..like gasoline in a car. Thus was the conversation we had that night..

had he stayed in his room with his typewriter typing all the time would he be able to keep that tank full? Had he not learned his writing foundation would he be able to communicate what he felt and saw and believed as well?

if an artist lives in the studio forever then he cannot paint what he does not know as well as if he had felt it firsthand...if he had not observed it how would it turn out? How can one keep the images from feeling concocted and soulless unless it comes from ones own experiences? if the artist spends no time learning his foundation how can he express to his full ability?

Anthony...no arguments there...that was very well said.

jason

[Munier]

The painting you are showing is in fact a well known Bouguereau. Why did you think it was by somebody else? It was sole by Richard Green Gallery in London a few years ago. It had a price tag on it of $600,000. Pretty funny actually.

Munier

[Munier]

Interestingly I've read the criticism here of the philosophy of artrenewal.org and then read the articles, and I must tell you that most or the criticism is nothing more than name calling like "whacko" or "radical". Nobody has really dealt with the arguments in a blow by blow method that is respectful of the clear and evident knowledge displayed.

I've got to tell you it nearly all sounds right to me. Picasso holds his place based on "prestige suggestion" and most people in the art world are afraid to call a spade a spade due to "social intimidation". Read this article especially: http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2001/ASOPA/bad_art_good_art.html

Also, the attacks here against Bouguereau fail to recognize the intense emotional power of his work. His technique is successful precisely because the emotional force came first in his consideration. Other great technicians back then never came close despite nearly equal technical prowess.

[balistic]

I spent last week back in Reno with family and the mens room at the Peppermill casino had gold-plated urinals and a reproduction of a Bouguereau on the wall.

I thought it somewhat surreal to be pissing into a gold urinal while looking at a picture I'd seen on Sijun.

My hometown is turning into Vegas at an alarming rate . . .

[Jason Manley]

that bouguereau doesnt look like bouguereau to me...tis very harsh..looks like a decent master copy though...the work is copyrighted on his site..eric williams is the name I think...I do not know the painting though..Id like to see the image on a different site to compare....take a close look..the ankes...the color...the planes and head structure...but maybe it is just the reproduction..I dunno...I dont think so though..tis too harsh...

the comment about others in his time having the technique down yet not being able to surpass him...that was very well said..thanks

jason

[worthless_meat_sack]

Munier,

Do you have any links to that image in a different context? I would like to know it's history. Any info would be useful

Jason, yes it probably is a clumsy copy. No credit is given, however, so I was assuming that it was an original work in the style of...

Munier, I disagree that contemporaries of Bouguereau were equal technically. I think he was the best by a margin in that school. But I beg to differ about "emotional force," whatever that means. This is 100% subjective.

The articles on art renewal are not educated. It is a bloated, sweaty bog of nonsense. It reads like right wing propaganda. I expect on each new sentence to hear him take the next step and blame the commie Jews.

If you know my work, you know that I do not work in a conceptual style. I am not a "modernist," as he would define one. I admire the artists on art renewal even more than the geek writing that crap. But I WISH he would be quiet. He is doing more to harm his "cause" than an demon "modernist" could ever do.

I will not refute his position point by point any more than I feel the need to go down to the park and argue with the looney tunes there, it is a waste of time.

Intelligent people regardless of their working style admire the academics for what they were. I would argue as strenuously against someone who saw the 19th century as a huge bourgeois mistake. But his fellow needs professional help.

[Munier]

Worthless-Meet-Sack

You are making the reasons for your handle fairly evident by this commentary. My charge of your not dealing with the arguments but calling him names instead, you have proved several times over in this last post.
You said for example:
"...fellow needs professional help" "argue with the looney tunes...""...the geek writing that crap." etc. etc.

Are you so insecure with your positiion that you must resort to this kind of below the belt name calling? His arguments are far more reasoned than yours. In fact Jason is making the most sense here so far.

You say he's doing his cause more harm than good, and yet if you read the link I pointed to you'd have seen that he recieved standing ovations on multiples occasions when he delivered that speech at the Metropolitan Museum in Manhattan to a crowd of over 700 artists. Sounds to me like he's rallying the troops who have been waiting for just such a leader.

That painting is a bad copy of the Bouguereau I mentioned. If I find a link to it I'll post it here.

[Steven Stahlberg]

quote:

---

sounds to me like he's rallying the troops who have been waiting for just such a leader.

---

Interestingly, that sounds just like what they said about Hitler in the beginning...

I think you should apologize for your rude comment to Mr. MeatSack.

[Gandalf-]

Ya know, it's amazing how people interact with each other when you have handles or alias' to hide behind. It sorta seems like people treat Jason, or Steven, or Don with a lot more respect than they do say..... worthless_meat_sack Now, I know that Mr. Sack has his reasons for coming up with extremely insulting aliases for himself, but I can't help but feel that if you spoke from behind your real name people would take you a lot more seriously. Horrible, I realize, but true I'd assume.

In my opinion, let your brush do the talking.

[worthless_meat_sack]

I am wrong for using unflattering names in my previous post, sorry bout that, you are right. But the onus is on you and him. The vast majority of educated people disagree, and find value in 20th century art. There are a large number of naturalist painters who find value in abstract art. I am one of them.

I don't know how to say this without sounding condescending, but I really do mean it without the slightest rancor, and very sincerely. Please learn about art on your own, from other sources than art renewal or the like. There is a much bigger world out there. If you are an artist (or even not), you owe it to yourself.

Thanks, Steven, no apologies are needed.

Hitler's war on "degenerate" art was indeed almost word for word what you find on art renewal.

No, art renewal doesn't generalize or call anyone names. Please...

Corn Pops, sad but probably true.

[Jason Manley]

Hahaha...you boys are funny sometimes....

steven and corn pops...there is actually an intelligent presentation beneath the communication issues you have pointed out. Personally...Id rather tell me the truth than respect me all the time...passion in discussion is fine by me...tis only sticks and stones ya know. I like the intensity that honest responses bring...I often learn a lot from interaction like that.

yes...that quote reminded me of hitler and the close mindedness of the germans at that time...but it also reminded me of the desperation for help..for a future...for support...traditional artists didnt have that for a long time either...thus the cries from those who had to spend the last 35 years or so struggling to keep it around...we have to thank them for that...I pass along info to you all from my teacher who was an art nazi like those on artrenewal...if they had not kept traditional ideas alive then we would all find it more difficult to learn...

As the discussion turns to argument I can only sum up what I feel I have learned from this thread...one is that we all seem to agree that any period of art can help us become stronger artists if we study and listen to that peroids masters...

another thing Ive learned through this discussion is that there is much bitterness within artrenewals writers that lingers from the abandonment of traditional painting by the art world..at times in my art career I have come to agree...only later to disagree.

It is sad that true academic painting is almost a thing of the past (the few holdouts like burton silverman, harvey dinnerstein, nelson shanks, yuqi wong etc..have kept the torch burning). The loss of technique which was facilitated by the artworld and art learning establishments turning their back toward the future before video and avi's could record the prescious data is like a sunken ship of treasure that is too deep to reach...but the fact that new treasures (odd nerdrum, jenny seville, lucien freud, kat kohlwitz, skip liepke, etc...the list is endless) have replaced the old seem to be making up for the losses...subject matter and mood have greatly widened in the artists vocabulary...for once the artists emotions alone are valid subject matter...not something that is stifled in favor of glorious images of the bible or history. I like that...While the twentieth century freed us from academic subject matter and trappings...it also spilled large portions of over 500 years of art learning, that had been passed down from master to apprentice, into the gutters of the lost.

Because of this we as artists find that it is hard to learn the lessons of the past and technical issues about traditional art and medias. Fortunately we have new areas..even deeper than those of the past...such as digital art...or 3d art...that can be pursued to possibly the same heights...and can benefit from all that has been done before.

If I had decided to stay in the fine art world and pursue my previous dream to be an oil painter, then I would probably still be upset that I had to scrounge for scraps of information to learn my craft ....as I was in classes taught by instructors who knew very little about what I wanted to know in particular and lots about other areas that could help me in different ways.

Regardless of it all...ARC is the best art site out there...I marvel daily over the reproductions and hi res imagery...their jpegs have graced my desktop since the site opened...I felt like I discovered gold when I stumbled across that site when it first went up....it was one big "FINALLY" that sighed out of me.


jason

[c]

i know this is trite but i think, as an artist, the day you fail to realize there is something to learn from EVERY other artist under the sun is the day you are no longer an artist.

you may not like it, you may not agree with it, heck you might not understand it but is there something to learn? some new insight? always!

i dont get modern art, i'll tell you that flat out, but if an 80 year old modernist painter who has probably spend every waking moment thinking about his artwork wanted to tell me, or show me, what he has learned i'd be all ears dude.

[Anthony]

You know...you guys are almost making me wish I cared enough to read those articles over at AR. You're also almost making me wish I cared what artists and styles other people liked. Almost ^_^

What do traditional Chinese martial artists practise the most? It's the forms and repetitious exercises. What do modernist martial artists like to focus on? Umm, lots of stuff. I like fighting. Others like forms still. Yet others like interpretive dance...err, kicking. Does each master have something to teach? You bet. Does it matter, if you're not interested in what they have to teach? Not bloody likely. Do we care if one guy insists one thing's better than another? Nope! This is like argueing political ideology.