What is ART? - any Artists out there?

I think art should be pleasing to the senses - be it sight, sound, taste, touch or maybe even smell. It’s always a matter of “taste” and is a very personal thing. Sometimes though, it’s just “art for arts sake, money for God’s sake”

This one piece that really “moves” me… and I cannot really explain why… but it does…

1 Like

And of course, python has a sketch for everything​:grin::grin:

2 Likes

Thabks for this fascinating glimpse at Doreen Fletcher’s work, Stella. Again you have brightened my day and strangely touched my heart with nostalgia for a half-forgotten memory of the London I remember from the 1950s. It is now represented as a ‘made-over’ heritage site, though some of its gritty blue-collar character still resists gentrification.

Her paintings are striking by being uninhabited, and that adds to their timeless quality, disregarding the launderette lady’ s long and lovely legs, if an old fellow can be excused a sexist aside :thinking::wink:.

And her sky-scapes and lighting are very English and very London IMO.

1 Like

I’ve just spent a few days in Paris. In between seeing friends and family we went to 3 museums/exhibitions… the Victor Hugo museum, a Miro exhibition at the Grand Palais and a Grayson Perry exhibition at La Monnaie.

All had some exquisite works - I was particularly taken by 19th century Léon Bonnet paintings, plus some Miro’s I’d never seen before that he’d painted in 1937 (ie during revolution), and Perry’s two Brexit tapestries - one leave and one remain. All totally different, all with a lot to say about the world, all with an emotional impact for me, and all memorable. So that’s my definition.

(Equally each exhibition had some works I disliked and held little meaning for me…but that’s just my taste…they were stitll art.)

1 Like

If I post on the subject of art, I tend to upset people, so sorry in advance (not really!) and here goes…

The thread’s starting point, the question, ‘what is art?’ is essentially a philosophical one. Most artists don’t need to worry about whether or not what they’re making is ‘art’, or if it’s something else. External forces will decide - just believe in what you’re doing and remain rigorously self-critical (that ‘s where many amateurs who’ve not had an art school education fall down -they’ve never been critiqued and so haven’t developed the editorial awareness and skills). No ammter how good you are, it’s unlkely that everything one does will be successful, but equally anything one does could be better - making art’s not like darts’ treble top where there’s an absolute limit.

I taught internationally in university fine art and art history departments for forty years, and would argue that althought many students have asked me ‘what is art?’ (and despite my being able to give them a reasonable philosophical answer) what they actually needed to focus on and develop were the fundamental practicalities of art making. This is because although some artists have written on such aesthetic questions, many more have been able to make great, important art without needing to.

I think it was the American painter, Barnett Newman who said that ‘artists need art critics like birds need ornithologists.’ In other words don’t worry whether or not it’s ‘art’ - is it ‘good’? And if you’re straining the creative envelope (sorry for that cliche - it’s late) this can be the hardest question to answer.

3 Likes

@DrMarkH “artists need art critics like birds need ornithologists”

Thanks for a thought-provoking and entertaining comment Mark.

I like the bird/artist analogy, and might you agree that as ornithologists contribute a lot to human understanding and appreciation of the wonders of birds and bird-life so art critics may help us better to appreciate the purposes and hidden profundity of art, as well as its unique life-enhancing quality as that grows in us.

1 Like

Interesting post Mark and (with your caveat of genuinely not wishing to offend anyone)I agree with much of what you say except I’m not really with you regarding art critics. I also suspect that many critics don’t help people better understand contemporary art as Peter would like them to.
These are genuine pieces of art criticism from art journals:

‘This manifestation of ephemerality is precisely the truth, submerged within the work’s material content…Linking up one point and another along the broken continuum of history…allegory and montage, the emblem, the reality-fragment, the ruin and the rune…when art and criticism lock together to express completely the incomplete nature of our being in time and the world.’

‘…it would be in the way she approaches this matrix of the effect-affect, this is without narrativizing it beforehand…as such, her work achieves a kind of realpolitik of the sensual effect quite distinct from this ‘tradition,’ yet equally distinct from the unreflective horse trace of Hollywood techno-magic.’

If anything I suspect this sort of critiquing would add much to the public belief that some artists at least are taking the p…s in a grand style. Of course, not all critics talk like that, the late Brian Sewell was always worth reading if not agreeing with, but it seems to me there is a correlation between a lot of work from the late C20th onward and the style of critiquing it has encouraged.

Having said that I remember when I was a second year art student we had a sculpture exhibition and competition sponsored by the old print union, NATSOPA, and judged by the sculptor Reg Butler. He saw my Irish name and my sculpture of concrete, steel, wood and glass and putting two and two together named it Long Kesh and awarded me first prize. Nothing could have been further from my inspiration so you can’t blame the artist for a critic’s (or another artist’s) interpretation. I accepted the prize anyway.

For me, exhibitions are always enhanced by well written notes explaining the times, culture and experiences of the artists (more art history than critiquing), but I cant remember a time I have gone to a show because an art critic recommended it.

2 Likes

Agreed Peter. Thanks for your succinct and elegant response!

You deserve a longer reply, but we’re setting off for Seville tomorrow morning (S Affrican wife needs a warmer January climate than that of the Aveyron), so I’m frantically packing whatI think might be useful. Consequently, I’m not able to respond to your useful comparisons to the degree that they deserve. Howvever, in the meantime, ii not too much happens on the thread, I promise to be back and try to expand on the useful comparisons you’ve made.

2 Likes

You are more than generous Mark, and I look forward (as, I think, may ‘nombreux’) when you have the opportunity. I know next to nothing about art or art criticism, and I suspect it is deep and broad, but I have benefitted in all kinds of ways by sharing (in a small group setting) personal non-technical perpectives on works of art, and recognising how one’s interpretation and one’s experience of the work, and of oneself, is ever-changing. Art can teach us that, and it’s a pity we aren’t more aware of its power to transform our lives. :grinning:

Another nod of appreciation due here to Stella for her formidable catalytic skills in the murky world of on-line personal relations :kissing_heart: @Stella xx

Tomorrow night on BBC2 at 10pm is a programme about cave art with Anthony Gormley…sounds interesting, and hopefully will go to places the general public can’t get into.

1 Like

Hi Jane… sounds interesting… hopefully it will apear on Youtube eventually…

I’ll try and watch that, thanks. I’m staying in a national trust cottage 300m from Hadrians wall. The house is between the Vallum and the wall, great sense of history :+1:

1 Like

9pm your time then…

1 Like

Oh hoooray! Very pleased to see your comment about not wishing to offend!! For all kinds of reasons, I feel the same! Not simply a desire to be kind to all my fellows, but sometimes as a matter of self preservation as there are few limits enthusiastic disapprovers might go to…like cutting up meisterwerks in museums etc. Busy busy …must think about it all more clearly, now! Thank you people!

I probably meant, autonomous, self governing? More than !self sufficient! Because self sufficient, nowadays suggests something materialistic… growing your own food etc I didn’t mean that, although that could help!
I thought about your q. Any answers I come up with and feel respect for, have to be for Everyman. So briefly, art is verb and noun …oh and adjective…etcetcetc… ie…definitely multipurpose…but it is best used. to identify the "making of connections " in every way that an infant first senses its world…Experiencing, testing, questioning, understanding, investigating, giving expression to, the world around, and from within as well… Art is vital… priceless… essential, because it comes first from that part of consciousness that questions everything, searches for solutions, before it ever looks to authority or control… …hmmmm…well …that’s my beginning…!!

I hear you Stella! Realism rocks… Especially Plein Air Painting! Below c’est moi what do you think? :smiley:

1 Like

Removed

2 Likes

Gorgeous pictures. The middle one is my favourite, but all have enormous appeal for me. The waves in the lower painting hugely impressive, great depth and motion. Friendly cork-wigglers too!

1 Like