Exquisite Rothko masterpiece sold at bargain price of $46.5 million

[Shash]

@KarlS

I don’t see what’s so horrible about that. You don’t need a hard art/non-art binary distinction for meaningful differences in artistic value. You can also view artistic value as a quality that every intentional act posesses to some - widely varying - degree.

You don’t need a binary distinction, but surely, at the extreme end of the spectrum, there’s “not-art”, and somewhere, there’s a point where the “art value” drops below the 20-decibel limit. A point where you can meaningfully say “that’s no longer art - at best it’s something that pretends to be art”.

@Mister44

Context is important and necessary. You can see WHY they are painting like that.

Which is irrelevant when the end result is indistinguishable from… nothing…

@Mister44

At the same time, much of art by early man is crap. Pictographs literally could be done by a 4 year old. The Pree-Renasassiance had issues with perspective. Many of them were extremely formulaic, where one would have trouble telling one artist from the next. And of course the subject matter was very limited. (Hope you like religious stories). So again, I can appreciate the early art because I know what they were trying to accomplish.

So, now who’s being elitist?

Early pictograms are simple, but they’re hardly random splatters of paint on canvas. Pre-Renaissance lack of perspective is not even a question of underdeveloped technique - it’s a technique that gives importance to other things. In those times, artists didn’t even think to sign their works; we don’t know the names of a single one of the creators of Ajanta for example. Formulae existed because there was a grammar to it. It still exists in different art forms all around the world in the same way. But that doesn’t mean there was no creativity. Every grammar allows space for expression within it.

Limited subject matter? If you think the scope for subjects in religious art is limited, you’re sorely mistaken. In the rest of the world, we’re still looking to religion for inspiration, and we haven’t come close to the limit!

@Mister44

You seem to think making modern art is a lot simpler than it really is. Note that most artists from the Modern Art movement were classically trained and could draw circles around the average person.

Yet they didn’t…

@Mister44

But yes - a craft can be an art. Just like graphic design can be art. Folk art can be art. That is why we find pottery and baskets and bottles from past cultures in art museums. Though the forms are often simple and utilitarian, they are also beautiful in a way.

You don’t have to tell me about folk art or craft from past cultures - I’ve used designs similar to those in museums as a part of my day to day life. I can pick out a dozen from the room I’m in without even trying. Yes, they can be well-made and pretty artistic too.

They’re still different from a blank wall. The craftspeople and artists who made these things would feel insulted if you suggested such a comparison to them.

@Mister44

I bet on ebay you can find some modern art history text book for $5. Indulge yourself.

Sure. I’ll do one better and learn from some great artists who happen to be good friends too, shall I?

See, I’ve seen such people work. There’s a clear difference between that and what your impressionists do.

@Mister44

If you think what Rothko did too no time, skill, or planning, then you are woefully ignorant of the process.

Time, well, obviously - painting a five-foot canvas isn’t instantaneous. Skill, I’ll grant you even that. Where I get hung up is a) intent - there seems to be no real plan behind it besides the filling of the canvas with two colours, at least to me - and b) emotion - it just doesn’t connect, doesn’t trigger any feeling in the mind; not even the negative. It’s just neutral.

@Mister44

You can not care for something and still respect it for what it is. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t make it crap. Your belittling of some of them is unfounded.

It it were just that, I’d leave it at that and go my way. The problem is, I find what I see as intellectually and technically lazy and unappealing held up as equal to or greater than works that have had careful planning, confident execution and that connect very strongly to the brain in a fundamental way. To me, this comparison with modern art belittles those works unfairly.

@kupfernigk

It’s of a piece with Duchamp’s Fountain though. It’s still a valid criticism of a lot of modern art; it’s only art because it has been signed by and officially attributed to a legitimate artist by approved art critics.There’s always a tension between the wilder fringes of the art world and the general public announcing “crap”. The amount of stuff that actually survives long term suggests that most of the time the general public is right. Not always. Personally I find Duchamps’s complex relationship to art very illuminating.

Pretty much exactly what I’m getting at…