{"id":1258,"date":"2009-07-30T06:08:57","date_gmt":"2009-07-30T14:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/?p=1258"},"modified":"2009-07-29T09:28:14","modified_gmt":"2009-07-29T17:28:14","slug":"musings-on-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/?p=1258","title":{"rendered":"musings on art"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

this…?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

or this?<\/p>\n

Perhaps this has been discussed before, and I wouldn’t be surprised, but I thought of something last week that I never encountered in five years in art school.\u00a0 I have a rather obvious dismissal for the value in abstract (or bad) art.\u00a0 Perhaps everyone knows this but simply doesn’t want to hear it since that would preclude their bad art\/abstract art from garnering high prices.<\/p>\n

The thought is quite simple.\u00a0 Up until recently (i.e. basically the last century) nearly all artwork was valued by collectors based upon the content of the work.\u00a0 Art was a commodity that conveyed a message based on the visible content within.\u00a0 For example, look at the work of any of the master artists from any period in history after the term “Art” (or Artist) existed and you’ll find that they made their living on commission pieces.\u00a0 Trust me (I have an Art History minor) these pieces were not abstract paintings.\u00a0 Even ancient cave paintings were functional – they were the earliest form of history books (and also instruction manuals).\u00a0 Artists until the 20th century made their living (and many abstract artists IN the 20th century) on commission pieces usually consisting of portraits or religious reenactments.\u00a0 The content was determined by the buyer in most cases, not the artist first. This is why when you go to the art museum portraits and religious imagery make up the majority of the work.\u00a0 Yes, we also see plenty of landscapes, some of which were commissioned and some of which were the artist’s personal “free-time” work.\u00a0 However, why didn’t these same artists do abstract art in their free time?\u00a0<\/p>\n

The reason artists didn’t really experiment with abstract painting until recently in their “free time” is because it wasn’t profitable.\u00a0 They weren’t practicing their real craft.\u00a0 A race car driver doesn’t work on crashing his car in his free time, only if spectacular crashes had a payday would a driver ever deliberately crash a car.\u00a0 Painting (and all art) used to be about a subject; about the content.\u00a0 Being able to render subject matter in this way was a skill that the general public didn’t have, and that made it valuable.\u00a0 In the last hundred years, though, the onset of photography cheapened the value of the painter’s ability.\u00a0 But what could the camera NOT do?\u00a0 The camera could not render a scene unintelligible (although it could be blurry – but that would just be a blurry photo) to the viewer.\u00a0 Painters needed to be able to make money somehow, and it was going to be harder than ever to make money by reproducing the real world.\u00a0 Cameras could do that job faster, easier and cheaper.<\/p>\n

And so abstract art was born to bring value back to painting.\u00a0 This time the value would be solely placed on the artist, and not a split between the artist and subject.\u00a0 This was a sad turnabout for the future of art.\u00a0 Art has always been about bringing content to light through the unique view of the artist.\u00a0 With an abstract painting the view of the artist is sealed separate from the viewer.\u00a0 It is only recently that publications have realized the value in using an artist’s view of subject matter.\u00a0 For example, TIME could have just put a photo of\u00a0Sonia Sotomayor on their cover and not a Chuck O’Brien painting.\u00a0 It is this quality, reproducing the world in unique form, that separates us from animals.\u00a0 Animals use simple tools (click the round button on the silver box).\u00a0 Painting a masterpiece is anything but simple.<\/p>\n

Now, I don’t mean to disparage photography, I have my own “art photography” after all.\u00a0 However, in the grand scheme of things I do believe that fine art and photography are two very different beasts (not necessarily precluding some photography from the realm of Art).\u00a0 This post wasn’t about photography though, it was about why abstract art, well… sucks.\u00a0\u00a0 If you don’t believe me, keep in mind that abstract (or “modern”) art also includes pieces like Duchamp’s “fountain” and Damien Hirst’s shark sealed in plastic… as well as Terence Koh’s gold plated feces.\u00a0 What personal value an art collecter gets out of owning a literal gold plated piece of shit I have no idea.\u00a0 Having a beautifully painted portrait of their daughter I can understand.\u00a0 The former is no more a piece of Art than a Google stock certificate, it is simply an investment because anything Terence Koh does will (supposedly) increase in value.\u00a0 Any object that derives its value on this basis is NOT ART<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

this…? or this? Perhaps this has been discussed before, and I wouldn’t be surprised, but I thought of something last week that I never encountered in five years in art school.\u00a0 I have a rather obvious dismissal for the value in abstract (or bad) art.\u00a0 Perhaps everyone knows this but simply doesn’t want to hear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1258"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1261,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions\/1261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}